Show Me What True Love Is
by whitelilly0989
Summary: “Say something simple…” yeah right… That’s the thing that’s kept my mind blank during all these weeks because I’ve come to learn that absolutely nothing about mom and dad is simple. That word doesn’t apply to them... RT story
1. Part I

**Autor's Note: **_Hey everyone! So this is the one-shot-not-so-one-shot after all I promised you all in **"This Broken Road". **__The story stopped being a one-shot due to a tsunami of ideas I had for this fic, and as you can see, this is quite long! But hopefully I'll have you hooked for the second installment. It's going to be sort of a three-shot maybe four-shot, so I hope you all like it. __Don't worry if you don't get where you're at, in the beginning... you'll see where the story's going once you're done with the first flashback!_

_Anyway... read and review!_

_Sharybabe_

_----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

**Show Me What True Love Is…**

**Part I**

"_Come on, sunshine! Can't you do this one little thing?", Ethan said to me from across the room waving his hands while he opened the fridge to get a bottle of water. _

_I mean, if I didn't know him any better I guess I would've probably bought the puppy eyes and the pitchy tone on his voice, but please, being the youngest one in the family doesn't mean I have to be the stupid one. Why can't people get that?_

_Without realizing it, I just rolled my eyes and focused back on the "Pride and Prejudice" copy I was reading before he got back from jogging. _

_I know what you're thinking, "Pride and Prejudice"? But yeah, that's my favorite book. Always have been, always will be… I blame mom. She's the one that handed me the reading genes in the first place because I don't think I've ever seen dad read a romance novel and I think I never will._

_No matter how many times I read that book, everyone knows better than to bother me when I'm doing it. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth require all my concentration and Ethan was depriving me of said concentration with something I clearly wasn't too eager to discuss._

_So I tried to do what I do best: pretend he hadn't said a thing… pretend the last 10 minutes of begging and aforementioned puppy eyes hadn't taken place. Of course, I'm old enough to know now that pretending doesn't last long… but maybe, just maybe if I focused my eyes on reading paragraph after paragraph, Ethan would just get bored and go away._

"_Sunshine…" he said again moving his head a little, "I'm not going away, so you might as well pay attention to me for a second"_

_Yes, pretending can't last long. _

_I know Ethan like the palm of my hand. I think I know him better than I know myself, so I knew that what he'd said, he'd meant. He didn't have any intention of going away, so if I wanted to keep reading how the fight between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth was gonna end, I had to humor him, and humor him soon. _

"_Not gonna happen, Ethan", I said without taking my eyes from the book, with vain hopes of him just saying "ok" and going to some other place on the face of the Earth… preferably, somewhere away from me. But like I said, I know Ethan… he wasn't going to do that. _

"_Why not?" he said reaching out for my dearest "Pride and Prejudice" and taking it out of my sight. "I'm asking you this as a favor"_

"_I'm not talking about mom and dad in front of everybody!" I said completely pissed off. He knows he's not supposed to take books away from me! Especially "Pride and Prejudice". If he was trying for me to do him a favor… that would never be the best approach._

_Now that I look at it, I wasn't mad about the book exactly, no matter how incredible that sounds. It was what he was asking of me. Mom and dad are always gonna be a complicated issue for me… that's never gonna change._

_But… he's charming, he has the puppy eyes, he's Ethan… and I knew how it was gonna end._

_He obviously understood because he sighed as if the whole weight of the world was resting against his chest, and that was something I couldn't take. All of the sudden being pissed off was erased from my mind and my eyes just focused on how defeated he looked when he sighed ever so painfully slow. _

_Whenever he seemed overwhelmed, even if it was by the most meaningless thing, my heart melted away… It's like a superpower of his. _

_His superpower, my kryptonite._

"_I'm sorry for taking the book away from you…" he said handing it back to me, "but I need you to do this… you deserve to do this…"_

_And there it was, as simple as that. The way he looked at me when he said those words was enough. My heart didn't need to hear anything else…_

_I was doomed._

_God, I was doomed… Damn puppy eyes! _

_Ever since I was old enough to form coherent sentences, Ethan has always asked for my help. It's become kind of our own brother-sister routine: he needs help, I play hard-to-get, he uses the puppy eyes strategy, and I end up doing what he needs… It doesn't matter that he's nine years older than me, or that he's a guy and I'm a girl, I think I've saved him more times than I've needed rescue myself._

_Don't get me wrong, it's not like he hasn't done anything for me during all these years. He's done his fair share of saving my ass too. He just likes to remain anonymous when he does it. _

_For me, I guess helping people out of jams and somehow managing for the whole world to find it out runs through my veins…_

_It's the Atwood genes._

_I sighed, and he looked at me, a grin forming on his lips because he'd known I'd given into his pleas. There was no way back now so I simply said, just as defeated as he'd looked seconds earlier, "What I'm a going to say?"_

"_I don't know Lillian", he said walking to my side "you'll figure it out. But just in case, say something simple. I'm sure you'll do great."_

_He leaned down to me, kissed my head and left me sitting there trying to figure out what to say._

_---------------------------------------------------------------------_

And here I am, sitting at a table, tonight being the night of my speech, still trying to figure out what to say.

My speech's supposed to be in about half an hour and since the moment Ethan asked me, which was about a month ago, to this point, I haven't had a clue of what I'm going to say.

Sure, sometimes I'm Miss Spontaneity herself, but to be honest, I need to have things planned out so I can know the exact set of events that are heading my way, and staring at that podium, knowing I'll have to get up there eventually not knowing what's gonna come out of my mouth, if something ever comes out for that matter, it's freaking me out.

How the hell did I let Ethan convince me of doing this? He knows I'm not the one to talk in public, he is! He's always gotten a way of saying exactly what he means, unlike me, a rambler 25 of the time and a silent human being the other 75.

"_Say something simple…"_ yeah right… that's the thing that has kept me from finding something worthy of saying. That's the thing that's kept my mind blank during all these weeks because I've come to learn that nothing, absolutely nothing about mom and dad is simple. That word doesn't apply to them, just like the word brief, reasonable or explicable.

In order for me to try and say something for people to have a clear image of what they're like, I'd have to talk for hours and I'd have to use words unknown to mankind because that's how complex they are. But hey, that's my way of seeing it.

My dad would probably manage to say something meaningful in the simplest way possible. I wish I could do that, but instead, in this kind of situations, the Townsend side is the one that rules.

But anyway, I guess I realized a long time ago that mom and dad weren't straightforward and I remember the exact day when it all started as if it was yesterday.

It all started when I was eight…

-----------------------------------------------------------

I remember it was a Friday… a sunny Friday, although that's an understatement.

I was sitting in one of the benches on the school parking lot, the heat of the sun on my forehead and my eyes practically closed trying to force the light out, waiting for my mom to come pick me up. The air was kind of hot and heavy… maybe hotter than any other day that time of the year, which was really contributing to my grumpyness and impatience. I also remember having a really bad day… ok, an _eight year old_ really bad day, which probably consisted of not acing a multiplications math test or some stupid thing that to me back then was the end of the world.

It's so funny how as you get older, your perspective of things changes by day and even by second, because sitting there I remember thinking that once I'd get into my mom's car and I would feel the AC in all it's glory, everything would be ok.

Sometimes, when I look back and see myself sitting there all alone, I ask myself if everything that happened to me that day and the horrible heat that was blowing around were signs for me to know that things were about to change…

Now that I think about it… maybe they were.

After about 20 minutes I saw my mom's Pathfinder heading my way. To me, it was as if the car was moving in slow motion, just like the drops of sweat rolling down my forehead. Second by second, I started getting angrier because for some reason, mom couldn't see I was burning my ivory skin under the sun and that she was driving terribly slow… I remember thinking _"God, Mom… just get here already!"_

It sounds silly, but those were my thoughts and now that I think of it, it makes my heart sink.

Once I got into the car, I closed the door and crashed my head against the passenger's seat. I felt the AC on my face and for a second or two everything felt like perfection… I ran my right hand over my face to clean the sweat of my forehead and closed my eyes. It sounds silly and childish but my multitude of problems went away and there was nothing but perfect peace inside the car… a perfect silence.

And that's when I knew something else was wrong.

Like I said earlier, I'm a silent human being… especially on bad days. Always have been, always will be… I blame dad. Mom on the other hand, has always been this upbeat person who can't spend more than five minutes with someone without talking. And if she sees you're mad or upset, no matter how many glares you give her as a sign that you do not want to talk about whatever it is that's bugging you, she just keeps insisting until you realize there's nothing you can do but humor her… I guess Ethan has spent too much time around her already.

Anyway… Townsend DNA taking over. The thing is, she'd been driving for about 15 minutes and hadn't said a word, not even _"hi"_. I can't believe that for a moment there I thought that made me happy; now, it's one of the saddest moments of my life.

Maybe for once she'd noticed I didn't want to talk about something, but then I smiled and rolled my eyes to myself just from thinking how unlikely that possibility was… and that's when I looked at her.

During that period of my life, I idolized mom. Quite frankly, I still do, more than I'd dare to admit to anyone, especially to her. I know her features, her way of walking, her way of listening and her way of rambling even; and I remember as if it had happened a second ago how her face looked like whilst driving the car that day.

She was biting her lips incessantly, and even though her eyes were looking at the road, it seemed like she was looking at something that wasn't there anymore. Her eyes were all shiny and watery and I noticed she'd done her make-up again during the course of that day… How the hell did I know that? That's a mystery I don't even know myself… but I knew… I knew she'd been crying even though I don't remember seeing her cry before that day.

The silence kept being louder and it started scaring me. Mom had been crying and at that point in time, the only one who cried in the house was me and she and dad, and sometimes Ethan, were the ones who consoled me. Dad wasn't there and Ethan wasn't either so it was just me… what could I possibly say for my mom to feel better? What could possibly be so wrong for mom to be crying?

Even though many years have passed since that day, I don't think I'd ever feel something more nerve-wracking and scary in the years I'm left to live than seeing mom as if she was a robot holding on to the steering wheel.

"_Mom, are you ok?"_ I asked breaking the silence between us, all feelings of perfection going out of my heart because I could feel it pumping blood too fast for me to catch up just from the sight of her face.

She immediately ran a hand through her eyes in an effort to clean the tears that were threatening to fall, pretending she was pulling a strand of hair behind her ear.

That's my earliest memory of someone faking something.

She cracked a smile and briefly looked at me before turning her eyes to the road and waving a hand while saying: _"Yes, Lilly I'm fine…"_

People think because I'm the youngest one in the family, I have to be the stupid one… but please, they couldn't be more wrong. If she would've been ok, she would've said some other Taylor-freaky phrase; I knew that even back then.

But I guess that what I wanted was to believe she was fine so I could feel safe. So I settled for the clichéd _"I'm fine"_ she gave me and just dropped it, thinking it was my dad's job to make mom happy this time. I remember having the hopes of seeing dad hold mom when I got home, and that in his arms; she would feel as safe as I felt on hers and that it could be just another day in the Atwood household.

I mean, if I was entitled to have bad days at school, maybe mom was entitled to them too, all we needed was to get home and see dad and things would be ok.

But just like with the AC, I couldn't have been more mistaken.

------------------------------------------------------

Mom kept driving the car for hours; it was night already and to me, it seemed like we were heading nowhere. By that time, I already knew how many ways were there to get from school to the house and vice versa. I knew the longest route, which mom always took whenever she was listening to a Fiona Apple CD and didn't want to get home before the CD was over, the medium route and the short route, and that day… mom was just driving around in circles without using any of them.

It was really weird for me to notice that we weren't heading home on a Friday night. Friday nights were sacred in my family. I remember those were the nights we all normally used to hang out, at least mom, dad and me whenever Ethan had an issue with Hannah or some other girl.

But even Ethan, with all of his teenage issues of the day, always tried to make room for that family time, and I guess that's why mom loved it so much. Mom always looked forward to those Fridays with an expectation that was a little eccentric, but then again, mom has always been that way.

I'm being a little unfair here. I don't have the right to criticize her eccentricities because, to be honest, I loved those Friday nights too.

I remember we would order pizza and watch some old movies my dad loved. No one ever told me to go to bed early because there was nothing for me to do the next day. Instead, I would stay up as long as my eyes would let me and fall asleep on the couch in between my mom and dad…

Since I'd had a bad day, and somewhere in the back of my mind everything was still uneasy, I wanted to get home as fast as we could. But when I saw that mom pulled over in the mall, poof! All my worries were gone and home was the last place I wanted to be.

Poof… just like that.

If there was something I loved more than Friday nights, it was going shopping with mom; and it was even better when aunt Summer tagged along. It always meant that I was getting some new fruity flavored lip gloss or a new dress or if I was lucky a new book… and even when I got nothing, which honestly never happened, I guess I could've settled for just watching and hearing mom and aunt Summer banter all night long as if they were four year olds. Seriously, feeling like the grown up rocked while going shopping.

I looked at my mom with the biggest smile and the shiniest two blue eyes that have ever existed and I asked: _"Are we going shopping?!"_

Mom just giggled and I thought everything was back to normal. In my world back then, there was no way mom could've giggled like that without being totally fine… but, I was just eight years old and I didn't understand how complicated grown ups can be.

Quite frankly… I still can't.

I practically started jumping up and down in my seat and mom started laughing with me… but then she said: _"Hey, don't get too excited 'cause it's just you and me this time around… Aunt Summer's taking care of Daniel tonight…"_

"_Who cares?"_ I said not being able to control my enthusiasm _"We're going shopping! YAY!"_ And with that I just stepped out of the car and mom and I went inside the mall.

----------------------------------------

Like Alice in Wonderland, or even like Dorothy landing in Oz… that's how I felt that night. Mom took me to every single bookstore in the mall and I ended up with lots of books like The Velveteen Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty.

As you can see, I have a thing for fairy tales... it's something I've loved since the cradle. And being with mom that night, that's how that felt to me… like a fairy tale.

I think I'll always admire the way she made me feel so great, while all the time acting so normal in an effort to hide what her poor soul was carrying, because to me, nothing was bad with the world; I could never see that what she was doing was giving me one last magical night, I could never see she was just postponing the inevitable.

I could never see that whenever she looked at me checking out a book, her eyes got misty and she smiled nostalgically, almost at the verge of tears.

---------------------------------------------

Sometimes, I don't know if I should be thankful to mom for giving me that one night in the mall before everything changed, or be mad at her because she used one of the things I loved most in my childhood innocence to stall and make time. I just don't know.

There was this time, about three years ago. I was sitting in my room and Ethan called me from his dorm in USC.

It wasn't very unusual, since we've always had a close relationship and we've been able to talk about any subject since I was… well too young to even recall it. Just like dad and Uncle Seth or mom and aunt Summer, we just can't stand more than two days without talking to each other. What was unusual though was the hour, it was about 11:00 pm.

I knew something was up.

He started talking to me and he started telling me how he'd just broken up with Hannah, his high school sweetheart and love of his life. They'd always had a on and off relationship but I'd never heard Ethan so… so bad as he sounded that night.

He started telling me how, for the first time in between all of their dramas, Hannah breaking up with him didn't make sense. He started telling me how he thought that maybe she was scared because of all the things that had happened to them in the past.

If that was the case, I can't say I blame her.

Let's face it, even mom and dad know that those two are a magnet for disaster, no matter how much they love each other.

"_I just don't understand why is it that we're so…"_ he said and then completely trailed off.

"_Dysfunctional…?"_ I asked trying to help him out finishing his sentence.

"_Yeah…"_ he said still sounding lost and miserable.

I really wanted to help him that time. I really wanted to make him feel that I was there for him, even when I was only fifteen. And According to mom, I've never been a child, I've always been a grown soul… so I just said: _"You know? Maybe she felt it was best to cut it off because she's protecting her heart. If I've learned something from my thousand of books and The Valley re-runs, is that people do insane things when they're trying not to get hurt."_

There I was, trying to say something meaningful that would ease his confusion, but then he proved to me why, out of the two of us, he's the one to talk in public. He said something so deep, something that got me thinking just like Jane Austen or Nicholas Sparks would, and that's saying something.

"_People do insane things when they're trying to protect the heart of a loved one too… you should know that…"_

Maybe mom was trying to protect her heart that night because watching mine break would totally break hers…

Maybe she was just trying to protect _my heart_ at the expense of her own…

Mad or thankful… I don't know.

I guess someday I'll find the balance.

--------------------------------------------------------

We got out of the mall and got back to the car. Once we were inside, mom switched moods again. Of course, I didn't realize it this time, although sometimes I feel I should've noticed since she'd been silent just like before; but I guess I was just too excited reading all the books I'd just gotten! I mean, it took me a while to realize that when the car finally stopped we were on our driveway.

Mom just sighed quickly before detaching the seat belt from her body and said: _"Are you ready to do this?"_

Thinking that she was talking to me, meaning if I was ready to show all my books to dad, I answered: _"Of course I am!"_ But she wasn't talking to me, she was talking to herself. That's one more thing I didn't notice back then.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and relive those days with the knowledge I have now. I keep telling myself that it would've been easier, but if my wish was to be granted, I'd probably just do the same things over again because I'd do whatever it takes to keep my innocence. Those last moments I was able to have were because mom wanted me to have them.

We got out of the car and as soon as mom started looking nervously for her keys, we both heard something that froze us. We could hear Ethan's voice inside screaming and yelling: _"You don't get to do this Ryan… you simply don't!"_

And home again was the last place I wanted to be.

For all the wrong reasons.

----------------------------------------------

When Ethan first arrived home, I was about three years old.

My dad found him outside of work one day, looking troubled and I can only imagine he had those irresistible puppy eyes on his face, that he was looking like the weight of the world was resting on top of his shoulders. I can seriously picture it.

Ethan was an orphan… well sorta. His mom had died, his dad was MIA, still is, and he was living with a step dad, who obviously wasn't too keen of having around. One day, Ethan just had enough of it and he ended up in front of my dad's project building. Dad had a similar upbringing before he came to live with Grandpa Sandy and Grandma Kirsten and I guess he just saw himself in Ethan's eyes and wanted to pay it forward.

He took him home to mom and me and once mom said it was ok, with help of Grandpa Sandy of course, they started the paperwork, and he became a part of my life.

That's the shortened version, of course. When it comes to how similar Ethan and dad are in that aspect, I guess there are a lot of details I still don't know, so I don't dare to say much. I've settled and I'm comfortable with the important thing: they're both part of my life… Ethan's a part of my life and that's the beginning of the Ethan/Lillian saga, as mom and Uncle Seth would put it.

Of course, I don't really remember the day he arrived, I just know one thing: I didn't exactly love him the minute he arrived, and he didn't exactly love me either.

He was just a 12 year old boy, who'd found himself a new potential family and was suddenly stuck with a three year old. And I was a baby… I didn't trust anyone who wasn't mom, dad, aunt Summer, uncle Seth, and the rest of the Cohen clan.

I know that by saying "clan" I've probably mentioned half the planet's population but my family tree is too complicated, so let's sum it up by saying I wasn't Ethan's number one fan. I mean, a whole year happened before I could fall in love with him.

It's so funny… it only took one day.

When I was growing up, the house was always filled with little model homes and pieces my dad used to do his projects. Of course, to me, those were dollhouses, and it didn't matter how much dad would tell me to stay away from them, I just couldn't resist. But the charm those little thingies had stopped when I seriously damaged one of them and my dad's project was due the next day.

I remember I was totally scared, way beyond scared now that I think about it. But I wasn't scared about being grounded or getting yelled at, I was scared because when you disappoint dad, he gives you this look, this strange and unsettling look that totally leaves you wishing he'd hit you or something because it would probably hurt less, and even when I was four, I knew that look. I was born with the gift of reading people just by looking at their eyes and dad, well, reading dad is the easiest thing because he pretty much says everything he needs to with just a glare.

I went to bed that night before dad had come home, thinking that I was seriously screwed. But when I woke up the next day, before anyone else, even mom, I found the model home fixed on the kitchen counter as if the Lillian Tornado hadn't passed around there…

And next to the little building was Ethan's sleeping form, resting against the counter, with the special glue dad used all over his hands.

And that was it, as simple as that. He became a part of my life, a part of who I am.

See what I mean when I say he likes to remain anonymous when he saves me?

I don't care how people say 'blood's thicker than water,' 'cause you know what? Ethan's my brother and he always will be. If being the daughter of Ryan Atwood and Taylor Townsend has taught me anything is that you don't have to share the same DNA to consider someone family and I know Ethan thinks the same too. He even started calling mom and dad, 'mom and dad' for my sake, and he managed to control his temper around the house just because he was concerned about me… his little sunshine.

So when I heard Ethan, first of all, yelling, and then calling my dad 'Ryan' that night…I somehow pulled out of my book fantasy dream and started feeling scared again because something was off.

Way off.

-----------------------------------------------

I can still remember that mom had her keys in her hands and that her eyes got glassy and surprised. It happened maybe for a split second because mom has always been the kinda woman who acts fast, so as a reflex maybe, she opened the door and sounding as perky as possible, she yelled in her very own Taylor-ish way: _"Lillian and I just got home!"_

I guess mom's right when she says I was never really a child, 'cause I understood she yelled that so Ethan would stop screaming, which, as always, she succeeded at because when I was finally able to take a look inside the house, Ethan and my dad were looking perplex.

What I didn't understand, was why?

Instantly, six pairs of eyes were on me and my fear reached a whole new level. You have to understand that none of it was normal for me. I'd never seen mom cry or heard Ethan yelling and I certainly hadn't seen dad looking at me the way he looked at me right then. For a moment that to me felt like a lifetime, a deathly silence reigned in the living room, and I was standing like a statue because no one else had said another word.

"_Hey sunshine…"_ dad said looking down at me with a forced half smile, almost as if it was hurting him to smile at me.

You know? That's the exact moment the denial stopped. During everything I've told so far, my heart wanted to believe everything was ok, just like mom had pretended she'd been fine when I asked her. But when I saw dad absently smiling at me, I knew nothing was gonna be ok… at least not that night.

That feeling of reality resuscitated in my heart how scared I was when I looked at mom's face in the car, only this time it was kinda deeper because neither mom or dad were giving me safety and I had never experienced that before.

I remember feeling scared.

More than scared actually.

Terrified.

So for once in my life I acted my own age and ran to him. Running to him was the only way I was gonna feel safe, even if it was for a second. The moment he saw me running, he kneeled to the floor and opened his arms to catch me and I crashed into his chest.

He enveloped his arms around me wordlessly while I buried my face into his right shoulder. I wasn't crying, I don't know why since I've always been a cry baby, but I thank God I wasn't crying because me crying, would've made dad cry and I know I couldn't bear to see dad crying.

Something tells me I couldn't.

Dad clung onto me for dear life, as if he was trying to feel safe too by holding me. See? Its little details like those I can remember from that night, because that night marked my existence; only just then, I was too young to realize it wasn't just marking me… it was marking everyone else too.

I didn't really want to let go of dad, but without realizing it I thought I'd held him enough, so I pulled out of the hug, our blue eyes collided and I asked: _"Daddy is everything ok?"_

Dad has never been a great liar or good at hiding what he feels, at least not to me because, like I said, he says everything with his eyes, so I know he would've told me right then. He swallowed and looked to the floor for just a second while he said: _"Actually…"_

He would've kept talking if it hadn't been for mom saying in a rather unsettling tone and in just one breath: _"Ethan, would you mind taking Lillian upstairs for a while? I need to talk to Ryan."_

Immediately, dad and I looked at mom confused and I remember asking _"why?"_ in my mind. Of course, I knew better than to ask it out loud because mom's tone was the one she used whenever she needed to talk to dad about something concerning me.

Ethan didn't need to hear anything else and he carried me upstairs to my bedroom. I think that's been one of the fewest nights where Ethan hasn't said a word to me from the moment I'd gotten inside the door. But he was mad, he was angry and I guess that if I had been his age and in his place I would've been pissed off too.

I do have my share of anger management issues.

Ethan left me there on the bed and he went to his room. I was left alone there in mine, and I needed to know what was going on downstairs. I needed to know if I'd done something wrong and if the reason why everyone was acting so weird and sad was because of me.

I needed to know.

So a while after Ethan had left me there, I got out of the room as silently as possible and I hid behind one of the walls of the staircase.

It wasn't like I hadn't done it before. I knew exactly how to sneak around to the kitchen in the middle of the night when I wanted to eat some cookies or some peach torte my mom had done for dessert.

I sat there on the floor and I started hearing voices, I could hear mom and dad talking but I couldn't see their faces because they were out of my sight.

"_You weren't supposed to be here Ryan…"_ my mom said sounding exasperated while I heard some steps on the floor; steps I assume were hers because she tends to do that thing where she paces around the room uncontrollably.

"_I know…"_ was all my dad could answer, in a tone that was new for me.

"_I mean the plan was that I was gonna go pick up Lilly and we could buy some time so you wouldn't be here when we got home… This is exactly why I make plans Ryan… so stuff like this doesn't happen"_ mom said in practically just one breath while the steps got quicker.

"_I know Taylor!"_ my dad said raising his voice _"You think I want my kids to watch me leave? You think I wanted Ethan to catch me packing my things and for Lillian to be upstairs while we're discussing this?"_

Why was dad leaving? Why were they talking to each other like that? What the hell was going on?! Those were the questions I had inside my head.

Those exact questions. Probably in a friendlier language of course, but the same questions nonetheless.

"_Wait…"_ mom said in a lower voice _"Ethan caught you? Wasn't he supposed to be with Hannah? Why did he come home early?"_

"_Why do you think he was fighting with me when you decided to open the door?"_ my dad said in the same defeated tone Ethan uses when he feels overwhelmed by the world. The only difference is that Ethan's rarely as overwhelmed as dad was that night.

"_You do realize that this is…"_ mom said after a sigh and almost trailing off _"really… difficult now"_

There were no more steps after that. She started sounding as burned as dad sounded, and every time she said a word, my mind kept getting flashbacks to her holding on to the steering wheel.

"_It was already difficult, Taylor"_ dad said in the same tone _"now's just… a million times harder"_

After I heard that, without realizing it I just started moving so I could get a sight of mom and dad talking at the end of the staircase. There was something about the way they were talking that unsettled me so much.

By that point I knew that they weren't talking about something bad I'd done at school and strangely, I was wishing they would've. I couldn't resist it anymore so I moved a little and I caught a glimpse of mom's slender frame.

She started fidgeting with her wedding ring while she looked at her left hand and said, her voice almost breaking: _"Did you ever think you'd be doing this?...We'd be doing this?"_

"_Leaving my kids like my mom left me? Leaving you?"_ dad said again in a tone that made my heart beat faster, while taking a step closer to mom, allowing me to catch a glimpse of him too.

"_Never…"_

Somehow I was getting the picture of what was going on and I didn't like it.

"_I guess…"_ mom said before raising her head to take a look at dad. _"People do change huh?"_

Dad took a step closer to mom as if he was about to take her hand, which she was still playing with, when he raised his head and saw me at the beginning of the stairs.

Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't been there. What he would've said, and I guess I'll always wonder if the destiny of my parent's marriage would've been fixed before it had a chance to be broken.

Dad looked at mom and mom looked at me. Then they looked at each other and dad took a step back. He smiled a little and then he nodded in an "it's ok" manner before mom looked at me again.

"_Hey Lilly…"_ mom said with a few tears in her eyes. _"Your dad and I have something we need to tell you…"_


	2. Part II

**Show Me What True Love Is…**

**Part II**

There are a lot of details about mom and dad's story I don't know. And I guess its better that way. We're all entitled to have moments that belong to us; just like what mom and dad said to me to explain why they were separating belongs to me.

What I can tell you is that I cried my life out that night on Ethan's shoulders after I heard the door closing.

The rest of what happened the day everything "begun"; because that's when the important part begins… is something that i'llI'll only tell if I really, really need to.

It just belongs to me.

But a major detail about them I do know is that they were a fairy tale.

My broken fairy tale.

One moment everything was fine and the other… everything was… wrong in so many levels…

My point is that I didn't have an exact idea back then of what was happening. All I knew was that all of the sudden, dad wasn't with us anymore… . All of the sudden there weren't any Friday nights and… well… , all of the sudden everything had changed.

The days that came after dad moved out were really sad and depressing. Mom was always trying to look normal but, just like _that_ day, I completely noticed how many times she'd put mascara on her face because she'd been crying. I also noticed that Aunt Summer was frequently at home and Ethan wasn't around as much as he used to be.

I guess that now that I'm older, I can see why he took it so hard. He had abandonment issues and I guess he still has them… . I guess he saw dad was leaving him behind, just like everyone around in his life before us had left him alone.

Ethan shut himself out from the world completely and so did mom… . And me… ? Well… I just buried myself where I thought I belonged: in my books.

Early in my life I understood that books carry with themselves a completely different world than the one we live in. I'm sure I'm not the first one to notice and I'm sure I won't be the last.

In every fairy tale, or in every romance novel which were the ones that came after the fairy tales, there's always a little drama, but in the end, most books find a way to make the plot work. And I guess that somewhere in my young, yet adult, mind I wished that my mom and dad's story would work out like on those the pages of my books.

But … time passed by, and the days became weeks, the weeks turned into months, and the months into years; and but the prince never came home… .

Life had to go on.

Surprisingly and slowly, things started getting back to normal. Mom and dad created a system and where I was with dad every other week; so it's safe to say that life didn't got get stuck and everything kept going like it used to.

Everything except for me.

----------------------------------------

The majority of psychologists say that most of our issues have to do with our parents and in some cases, I think they're right.

Before you get the wrong idea, let me explain myself…

Like I said, I have a thing for romance novels and for love stories but when I hit puberty I knew things weren't as simple as that for some people. It was like I had a defined line between books and reality, and even though I liked the book world better, I slowly started facing the fact that I didn't live in books. Reality was sucky in that aspect and if you ask me… too damn hard to understand.

Romance novels in all of their simplicity, taught me that love was everlasting. Love was eternal… ; it didn't matter what tragedy had happened, or if the person you loved wasn't with you anymore, that love you had in you was never gonna die.

It was just there… for ever.

So love was supposed to be simple right? You love someone, that someone loves you, and then nothing else it's is supposed to matter…nothing. But that definition was just good in theory… , but in practice, for some reason, it didn't work with me… .

And that was because of my parents

For whatever reason I didn't know, for my parents it hadn't been that way. They were the closest thing I knew to romance and look how they'd turned out, so for me… as I grew older, as much as I still loved reading romance novels… , I stopped believing in love.

I became agnostic to it.

Mom and dad had been together for what? Eight years, which was my age when they split up and only God only knew how much time before that… , yet they'd still ended up separated. They still had woken up one morning and had decided they didn't love each other enough to pull through.

Where was eternity? Where was timelessness?

I started realizing that, if, at the end of the day, it didn't matter how long or how much you'd loved someone, eternity was never gonna going to come, then love wasn't worth it.

If it turned out that love was just so complicated… , if there were bigger issues that could prevent you from surrendering your love to that special person…

Then love was too complicated for me….

There wasn't a point in loving outside of books….

--------------------------------------------------

There are moments in everyone's life that define what you believe in and most importantly, who you are. For me, as obvious as it seems by this point, my parents splitting up defined what I believed in… .

My beliefs were simple. Love was just fiction for me. Dad living for 6 1/2 years in some bachelor apartment as if he wasn't still married to my mom was the proof of it.

Oh yeah, that was the other thing.

Mom and dad never got divorced; and at some stages in my life I wish they would've. It would've been easier, it would've been simpler and at that point in time, I was dying to get some simplicity…

I was dying to be normal….

I'm sure you're thinking that divorce and marriage separations are pretty normal these days, but I'm not talking about that kind of normality. I'm talking about the fact that Ethan and I seemed to be the only kids with parents who didn't share the same roof in our family. Aunt Summer and Uncle Seth were married and they had Daniel, Grandma Kirsten and Grandpa Sandy were married and they had Dad, Uncle Seth and Sophie… Julie and Frank were married and they had Nathan… Dad and mom were married…

But they didn't live together.

See my confusion?

Anyway... as I was saying, my parent's relationship pretty much defined what I believed in… . I can't say I chose to believe there was more to life than love… , but I can't say I didn't know my reasons to believe it either… . I guess it just defined an era in my life… .

The funny thing about it is that I can't really put my finger on the moment I started believing it… , It just sort of happened day by day.

But the moment that defined who I am?

That one I can remember exactly.

------------------------------------------------

As most things in my life, it happened when I least expected it. I'd just gotten home one night from a friend's house, knowing perfectly fine that I was gonna find the house completely empty.

As the fifteen year old girl I was by that time, I knew mom's schedule like the palm of my hand. Like I said earlier, I idolize her… so that night I knew she was gonna be working over time in the office. As the recognized copyeditor she is, mom always had a lot of things going on in her plate… , she always had tons of articles to correct in the magazine and I assumed she worked better in the office… , so she stayed there three nights a week.

And that was one of those nights. Ethan was at USC by then, so if mom was working a few more hours, it was ethnic food and solitude for me.

I threw my bag on the couch and I immediately headed to the kitchen to get a soda. That was always my little ritual when I got home from school and the house was empty. I'd always go to the kitchen, get a soda, look through the DVD cabinet, search through the take out menu, and order in.

So that night, I did nothing differently. I remember I'd settle with watching "The Butterfly Effect" or "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or something that had the "it's meant to be, it's not meant to be" mantra in it; and I'd decided I was in the mood for Chinese on the way home… so there was nothing else to do but dial the number.

So when I made sure I was all set to start watching the movie, I grabbed the phone and I was about to dial, when I heard a conversation going on.

"_Aren't you supposed to be working?"_ I recognized the voice of Aunt Summer at the end of the line.

"_I was… but I'm just so tired…"_ said mom's voice with a yawn.

I'd been so immersed in my own little world that I hadn't realized mom was upstairs. I immediately went to the window to see if her car was outside, 'cause if it was, my own mind had played me a trick because I could've sworn the driveway was empty. And once I got a glimpse of the night outside… her car was there.

I must've been so out there dipping out of reality as always!

I was just about to yell from downstairs to tell her I'd just got home and that I was starving, when they both kept talking….

"_I never thought I'd see the day you __would get tired of reading…"_ Aunt Summer said in a friendly tone.

"_Yeah well…"_ mom said _"I'd never thought I'd see the day I'd got separated and here I am… it's been six and half years…."_

And that's when I stopped dead on my tracks.

Honestly, I can't describe what I thought the exact instant I heard those words, other than the feeling I couldn't stop eavesdropping. There had been a lot of stuff I'd done, but I'd never even dared to sneak around in a phone conversation, especially mom's… but there was something about that subject in particular that draw me in inexplicably.

In most turning points in my life… I'd always felt the same.

"_Ok… I knew you would never get tired of reading… I knew there was something else…"_ Aunt Summer said with a long sigh.

"_I became predictable… people do change…"_ mom said slowly and in low volume… as if it was for herself only to hear.

"_People don't change…"_ Aunt Summer said in a firm tone… I guess she knew better than to keep talking, because she knew mom was nowhere done yet. I guess she knows her better than I do….

"…_Ryan and I are the proof of it, right?"_ mom said

"_And why __is that, Taylor? Explain it to me once again."_ Aunt Summer said, and I could seriously picture her in my mind while she said it.

That's the thing with her. Sometimes, I think she would've made a great shrink. Every time you have a crisis, she just makes you talk in a "how does that make you feel?" kinda way. It's not like she actually says the phrase, but it's the way she looks at you… , the way she just listens most of the time and she always ends a heart-to-heart conversation with the phrase: "I hope you know what you're doing…" that totally makes you question the ground you're standing in….

"_Did you know he bought a __whole bottle of Bordeaux for himself a few days ago?"_ mom said in a pitchy surprised tone.

"_What? Wait… How the hell do you know what he bought?"_ Aunt Summer said slowly and in a confused and creepy tone. _"Are you stalking him again?"_

What? Stalking? Mom stalking dad? Surprisingly, the idea didn't seem so weird for me… but you know what? Never mind… I'll just stay focus on the facts….

"_Summer! Please, I wasn't stalking him! Those days are behind me now"_ mom said complaining _"I just happened to see him at the grocery store… and when I saw he looked my way… I just kinda… ducked to the floor…"_

And that didn't seem weird either… My mom, ladies and gentleman!

"_Oh My God, Taylor!"_ Aunt Summer said almost laughing _"And he didn't see you?"_

"_I hope not…"_ mom said and then she remembered what they'd been talking about. _"But the thing is he bought a bottle of wine, Summer… a whole bottle!"_

"_And that's important because…?"_ Aunt Summer asked completely confused… and if she was confused, you can imagine how I was….

"_Don't you see? That's how we've become! That bottle is __symbolic Summer…"_ mom said almost frustrated, as if it was impossible to make it any clearer.

"_What?"_ Aunt Summer said for the second time during that conversation, twice as confused as she'd been the first time… _"What does it matter if he bought a bottle of Merlot…?"_

"_Bordeaux…"_

"_Whatever"_ Aunt Summer said getting exasperated by the second _"How does that affect you?"_

Mom took a deep breath, as if trying to come to terms with what she was about to say… and right then, I knew I was gonna find out about something important….

The thing is I wasn't sure if I wanted to listen to it. I'd found a way to be comfortable about mom and dad by generating a theory about love, a theory it had taken me years to form for it to have a steady foundation, and I was scared it would come tumbling down.

I was scared they would make things more complicated for me….

So I struggled with the idea of putting the phone down and pretend nothing had happened… .

But pretending can't last long…

So I just put the phone back in to my ear and listened… . I listened to mom's heavy breath for a second…

"_When have you seen him drinking wine…?"_ Mom asked in a low voice… , a defeated voice….

"_I… don't think I've ever seen him drink wine…"_ Aunt Summer said again slowly… as if she'd just read between the lines and had gone inside mom's head.

"_Exactly…"_ mom said again in the same tone of voice _"he's a beer-kind-of-guy… Heineken, actually, and now he's buying bottles of wine… he changed…"_

"_Oh sweetie…"_ Aunt Summer soothed… , and when she said that… I could seriously picture mom too… , just like that day… when I was eight.…

"_Ever since Prague or maybe before that… I don't know I just know we noticed it after then…"_ mom said rambling… rambling nostalgically_ "things changed…"_ and then she lowered her voice _"… everything changed…our tastes changed, our goals changed… we… changed…"_

When I heard that, I swear I was about to ask "why?" Seriously, that has to be like, my favorite question. But then I remembered I wasn't supposed to be hearing. But can you blame me? It was inevitable!

The anxiety that was going through my veins was freaky, so freaky because I was so close to getting answers!

Actual answers…

So I was there hoping Aunt Summer would make mom talk… but she didn't….

She knows her better than I do.

"_People don't change…"_ Aunt Summer said after a long sigh.

"_But they do…"_ mom said slowly _"they do…"_

-------------------------------------------------------

Have you ever thought why people give up? I have… and I've come to find an answer… at least one that is entirely true in my case: People are afraid….

That's why they give up.

After I heard those words coming from mom's mouth I removed the phone from my ear, not because I didn't wanna listen to the rest of the conversation, but because I knew there was nothing else that could've been said. At least not something that would make me feel less absent and overwhelmed.

Because that's how I felt. I felt overwhelmed. And you wanna know the interesting part? It wasn't because of what she'd said directly… It was the fact that I'd been just about to get answers for questions I hadn't even asked!

During those six and a half years I'd just accepted the fact that my parents weren't together just… because. I'd never even asked myself what had happened between them! I'd never even thought of any possibilities of why they hadn't worked out… .

Instead, I'd just simply given up.

And I know now, it was because I was scared.

I was scared of whatever it was I could find on in my mom and dad's skeleton closet. I was scared because it was easier to believe love didn't exist than to admit to myself that love was indeed incomprehensible.

I was scared of finding out what had truly happened. So scared, that I'd blocked all the "why's" out of my head… I'd never even bothered to get answers before that….

But that changed after that day… and I think I was determined to find some answers when the right time had come… answers like, why had they changed? Why hadn't they talked about it since then? And what the hell happened with/in Prague???

But that's something no one knows.

No one knows that because of that phone call, I changed and became who I am…

----------------------------------------

Is funny how, when you're determined to make sense out of things and you finally open your eyes to little details, you find them as if they were white spots in a black blanket and you feel like banging your head on a wall while you ask yourself: "how the hell I didn't notice this earlier?"

Don't worry… it happens to the best of us… it happened to me.

Before the phone conversation I was living in a world where love was just fiction and a big load of crap. And to be honest, that theory wasn't wiped out of my mind immediately. There were parts of me that were still yelling and screaming that it was safer to be like I'd been till then: Ppretending there weren't reasons for things to be like they were between my parents.

But it was as if fate had been telling me: _"Ok… you don't believe me? You don't wanna believe that there's something you need to figure out there? Then take that, missy!"_

And there it was…

I still can't understand how the hell I didn't see it earlier!

-----------------------------------------------

It happened when I was in tenth grade. Six months after the phone conversation. I was caught cutting Spanish class for the nth time in a row. To be honest I'm in love with English. It's my favorite subject in the whole wide world and I think that someday, I'll make a great writer, if I have it in me, of course; but the whole languages thing? Not me… not me at all.

So, in my defense, I have to say I was bored. I was dying of boredom in Ms. Fuentes class and I just couldn't take it anymore, so I decided to use my sneaking abilities, only it ultimately backfired on my face.

The next thing I knew, I was being dragged to the Dean's office and since, it's a rule to report a kid who's caught cutting class some time after the fifth time in a row, a parent had to go to school.

I had no idea who they'd called… I had no idea if mom was the one going or dad, and I started looking at all the possible scenarios. If mom was going, she was probably gonna start rambling nonsensical things in Spanish with Ms. Fuentes and I would end up spending like two hours sitting there just watching their faces, and that was quite a punishment; but if it was dad…

Oh boy… the look… The look of disappointment was gonna eat me alive!

So I just sat there, dreading my future, weighing the balance and thinking which was worse: Spanish ramble… or the look… ?

There was no way I was winning that one….

Only I did… .

------------------------------------------

I was sitting in the hall outside of the Dean's office waiting for one of the people who brought me to this Earth to make an entrance and once I saw it was dad… I immediately bowed my head trying to avoid getting the look that makes you wish you could disappear.

He took a sit next to me and put an arm around my shoulder and then he said hello in the simplest way possible…

The famous, the one and only: _"Hi Sunshine…"_

"_Hey dad…"_ I replied.

"_Wanna tell me why it is I'm here?"_ he said searching for my eyes that were still concentrated on playing with my fingernails.

"_They didn't tell you?"_ I asked again, avoiding his face. Now that I think of it, it must've been funny watching me trying to bury my face into nothingness and having my dad trying to look at my eyes sitting there in that hall.

"_Lillian, which class did you cut out this time?"_ he said almost laughing; I assume that noticing I couldn't dare to look at him.

"_Hey! Is not like I miss out on every single class I have!"_ I said raising my head, doing exactly what he wanted without realizing it.

That's the thing with dad, there are moments when he just seems to know you so much… he seems to know what to say or what to do to make me feel comfortable… I guess that's just because I'm his daughter 'cause honestly, he doesn't seem to have a clue of how to do that with any other person.

"_So it was Spanish again? Lillian…"_ he said leaning his head a little as if he was about to start lecturing me.

"_Can you blame me? Can you honestly say you blame me?"_ I said throwing my hands in the air.

He looked at me and the vaguest smile formed on his face. Then he looked at the ceiling for a moment and I knew he couldn't say he blamed me. I know dad enough to distinguish which things appeal to him and which not ; and as far as I knew Spanish wasn't one of them. I guess it's because we're similar in a lot of things.

"_Actually no…"_ He said really quickly _"something similar happened to me with French…"_

"_French?"_ I asked intrigued _"You used to cut out French class?"_

"_No"_ he said again smiling a little more than before _"French came later in my life and it was difficult at first…"_

"_Aren't you the romantic kind? Dismissing the language of love?"_ I teased, him slapping his arm playfully.

"_I'm not dismissing it… I came to love it because I learned to have my way with it, but at first I just kept having flashes of a guy who smells like brie …"_ he said absently talking to me… , more like remembering stuff to himself.

"_Wait, you learned to have your way with it? __While thinking of a guy who smells like brie? You know what? I don't even wanna know… You seriously have some issues dad…"_ I said giving him a quizzical look and rolling my eyes a little.

"_You're good… you're good changing the subject…"_ he said talking to me in a more serious matter that made me remember my fear for the disappointing look that he was probably gonna shoot at me any second.

I had to lighten things up a little, so I said: _"It's not my fault your mind's easy to work with…"_

"_Nice one…"_ he said smiling again in that really amusing way he has. _"But seriously Lillian… you have to stop cutting Spanish class… I understand it must suck for you but I really don't feel like coming here once a week so would you do that for me?"_

"_I can't promise anything…"_ I said pouting and rolling my eyes again. Whenever he says things in that tone, it has the same effect on me that Ethan's puppy eyes have… , so I just smiled and he smiled back at me.

"_I'll settle with that…"_ he said before he tapped my shoulder _"now we just have to wait for the dean and we're good to go..."_

And then… it happened.

As if it was slow motion, dad and I both saw a woman with an unmistakable pair of Manolo Blahniks, a designer outfit and the shiniest auburn hair in history walking directly to us and neither he nor I knew what to say or do.

That's right… mom was there.

In none of my wildest dreams would I have I would've pictured mom and dad there that day. Whenever they knew they were gonna be in the same place, they usually called one and other to see if it was ok… ; I'd never wonder why they did that… but after that day… there was no need to!

When I saw mom make an entrance a thousand of unrecognizable thoughts flooded my mind, but not in a million years I thought I'd have so much fun!

Dad immediately rose from the chair and I noticed how mom stopped dead on her tracks. I can swear I heard dad say _"ouhkay…" _and mom _"oh my God"_ when they realized they were both there.

Of course, at the beginning I didn't know how they would react or anything but once I saw mom started playing with her fingernails just like I do when I'm nervous I knew something was gonna happen.

See? As you've probably noticed I pay attention to details… so I still can't figure out why I didn't see it earlier!

They remained there glued to the floor and I remembered looking at both their faces. It was like watching fear personified, but at the same time they couldn't stop smiling. Dad's hands got shaky and mom must've cleared her throat like 20 times in less than a minute. Seeing them there, looking at each other in a complete state of stupidity started forming on my lips what I assume was a Cheshire grin…

What the hell was happening?

I noticed none of them were reacting so I jumped in and saved the day by asking: _"Mom… what are you doing here?"_

For how long they would've kept being there like statues in complete awkwardness if I hadn't said anything, would remain a mystery. For all I know they could've still been there in the hall of the school to this day.

"_Umm… emm…"_ Mom said while she kept staring at dad for a second before she focused her attention entirely on me. _"Oh…! The Dean called me about forty five minutes ago… Ryan what are you doing here?"_

"_The Dean called me too…"_ Dad said while he pointed a finger at the door. _"I guess they got mixed up…"_

"_Yeah… of course they did! I mean they always call one of us, not the two of us at the same time. This is just one giant mix up. It's not like we planned to see each other in here right? We don't need to see each other at all…"_ she stopped for a millisecond or something while she looked at me and then continued. _"Not that I hate seeing your dad or anything… your dad and I are friends… great friends…"_

"_Taylor…"_ dad said looking serious and noticeably uncomfortable. One of those funny and endearing uncomfortable situations. _"Focus… we're here… at Lillian's school… Lillian cut Spanish class again…"_

"_Hey!"_ I said complaining… I wanted to hear mom ramble like that. I'd heard her ramble before but in that state of awkwardness? Not so much. For some reason, it amused me. _"You didn't have to sell me out you know?"_

"_It's not my fault you're "sneaking around" skills go bad every time you cut Spanish class…"_ he said almost growling to me, but I didn't take it bad because mom was making him nervous… and I liked it.

And the interesting part is… I think he liked it too.

"_Nice one…"_ I said sticking out my tongue to him.

We are funny and quirky like that.

Who would've thought dad could be funny?

"_¿Por qué te vas de la clase de español Lilly?"_ Mom asked wrinkling her brow and totally focusing her attention on me. And there it was… the Spanish rambling had started.

"_Say what now?"_ I asked wrinkling my brow too which dad couldn't avoid laughing at. _"Oh boy…"_

"_Lillian… Spanish is an interesting language you know? And it's not so difficult… you just have to give it a little time. Of course if it was French I'm sure you wouldn't be cutting class that much. French is the language of love, you like romance novels and you're my daughter… and I happen to LOVE French… But you'll have to settle with just Spanish for now. It's good to know some foreign culture."_

Right there, the grin on my face got wider, as if such thing was possible.

Dad's face immediately started looking at the ceiling and at the floor and I just said: _"French huh? Interesting… isn't it dad?"_

Dad looked at me and his eyes were like big china plates; and I did my best not to burst into laughing just from the sight of him like that.

I'd just discovered something new about mom and dad. And a new way to mind-trick him! Two birds and one shot!

He looked at me trying to seem oblivious to the fact that I've found the connection between him, mom and French and then he said: _"Lillian…"_ in between his teeth.

And just when I thought things couldn't get better… the door of the dean's office was opened…

Usually I was dreading going in there, but that day, it was certainly going to be an experience of epic proportions… and we hadn't gone in there yet… when things got far more interesting.

"_Good morning Mr. Atwood"_ the dean said extending his hand for my dad to shake it. _"You're becoming quite a familiar presence around here…"_

"_I wish I didn't, believe me"_ dad said shooting me a glare but I was having so much fun, I honestly didn't mind.

"_And you are Ms. Atwood right?"_ the Dean said, and I just stood there waiting for the rambling cascade to drown us all.

"_Townsend…"_ she said matter-of-factly, but then she kinda stopped and kept going. _"Ryan and I have been separated for seven years now. But I guess you could say Atwood, I mean, we aren't officially divorced… we're just separated. We never signed the papers, so that doesn't change my last name into Townsend again, so if that's the case I am the mistaken one, not you… So silly isn't it? I'm the one using my own last name wrong! Life… such a journey…"_

"_Mom…!"_ this time it was me who had to stop the rambling, not because I wanted it to stop but because dad was about to make a hole in the concrete and duck his head in it.

"_And… you cut Spanish class… right…"_ she said smiling nervously, while the Dean looked at her freakishly._ "That's why we're here…"_

"_Exactly…"_ I said smiling and looking at dad with the corner of my eyes and we all started going inside the office; and while we did that… dad whispered in my ear: _"Damn… you're good changing subjects…"_ and I replied, sarcastically: _"Me? Never!"_

----------------------------------------------

When I was back at home that night after the meeting with the dean, I started remembering the scene. At first it amused me to remember how funny they'd acted at times… I mean, come on! Mom could be a comedian or something like that if she wanted to!

But once I started analyzing things, the way I do with everything… I realized how obvious it was. It was undeniable, there was something there. Every glance, every word they'd addressed to each other, as polite and shy as it was… it was like watching a scene from The Valley. The awkwardness, the rambles, the nervousness… It was obvious there was something there… .

I'd read too many romance novels to know that it was impossible to be mesmerized by someone without feeling something truly genuine for that person… and that's how they were… mesmerized.

And then I started wondering how long had that been going on. For how long had they'd been feeling something for each other and had settled with just that… distant glances and polite words…?

For how long had I closed my eyes to the possibility of them feeling something? For how long had I been in denial not asking questions that now seemed so obvious?

And if it turned out that they did loved each other all along, then why weren't they together? Why had they split up when I was so young and had led me to believe love wasn't true? Why didn't they prove me wrong and show me that true love existed? Why did they have to complicate it so bad?

Love was supposed to be a simple thing, in theory. And if it'd been obvious to me after that day that they loved each other… then what was the problem? Why was it they couldn't work things out?

What the hell had happened in Prague?

See? This is why I say they're complicated.

--------------------------------------------

I don't think that opinion of them is ever gonna change for me. There are so many things about them that still turn my world upside down, because they never do things the old-fashioned way. They're both complicated people with bigger issues than they led let on. Like mom for instance, is a meddler by nature and dad, well… the savior complex I have I got from him….

I'll never understand how exactly they developed those quirks, but I know those they have made them complicated people who have complicated relationships with everyone around them… . And just like my opinion of them, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

And here, sitting in the table thinking about it, it makes me smile… I don't know why….

"_Hey sunshine"_ a voice I know all too well says to me.

"_Hey dad…"_ I say looking at his smile.

"_Whatcha thinking?"_ he asks still standing in front of me.

"_Nothing much…"_ I say waving my hand telling him is it's no big deal _"Just random stuff…"_

"_You're nervous…"_ he says looking at me, while I give her a "who? Me?" look he didn't buy _"Well… you have two options…"_

That's the thing with dad… he can see right through me. Even when being nervous hasn't been in my mind for a while, and mom and him are what's been occupying any free neurons, he made me remember what it feels like to look at the podium and not know what to say!

"_And those are…?"_ I asked wrinkling my brow for a moment.

"_You can either run out of here before you go up there…"_ dad says pointing at the podium. God, that option seems so good right now!

I mean, look of all the things that have gone through my mind and I haven't found anything good yet! And I need to say something meaningful… I have to!

"_Or…"_ dad says with the slight move from his head _"you can dance with me… how does that sound?"_

I sighed… and without having to say a word I just reach my hand out to him… and he takes it, taking me to the dance floor to dance with him.

He does it just like he did two years ago when I was sixteen…One of his big rough hands carefully wrapped mine back then, and then he placed his free hand on my waist…

I remember that time because I was seriously confused… so confused, I couldn't help but ask

"_Dad… what happened __in Prague?"_


	3. Part III

**Author's Note:**_ Ok so here it is... the next part of this story. This is proving to be my longest story so far! I just wish you don't get bored in the middle of reading this! lol!_

_I know I said it was gonna a three-shot or maybe four-shot, but I think is gonna be longer than that. I just keep having ideas and it's so crazy! I hope you guys love this story. This is a story that is really really close to my heart and I hope you all appreciate it. I wanna thank my beta **Lesley**_: Vex, once more, I love you profoundly... you have no idea how much I love you!_ And I also wanna thank all of the reviewers in part II... it was very rewarding and I have to say it was really cool to have more feedback in this story! So please... review!!!! _

_No off to read my lovelies!_

_Shar_

_xoxox_

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

**Show Me What True Love Is**

**Part III**

Ok, maybe I rushed a little into things. It's just that being in dad's arms dancing feels so comfortable and so at ease sometimes that it's inevitable for me to remember the moment that he made me feel more relieved than I think I'd ever felt before that.

Because, I realize now that since the moment I'd started asking questions in my mind about mom and dad, it was like there was no room in there for anything else. It felt like I'd tried to understand them for so long that it became tiresome and overwhelming. I know I might be exaggerating since probably only a couple of months after the meeting with the Dean I got a glimpse of what had really happened; but I just felt like I was agonizing or something…

It came a point where I couldn't read, and worse, write because I felt like I had no energy, no motivation whatsoever, and honestly, I'm nobody without writing and reading.

Of course, I understand now that every artist goes through an era, an episode, a lapse, or whatever you wanna call it, when he or she feels trapped in the world that previously felt so perfect. For every painter there comes a time where he doesn't feel like painting and every canvas is just a depressing white screen; For every musician there comes a time where he or she is lost in a groove and the muse seems to be gone for composing a song and for every writer, which is what I like to consider myself at times, comes a moment where he or she comes to hate seeing ink on a piece of paper because there's something that makes you feel like the words are mocking you even when you've probably read those words previously and they'd felt like heaven on Earth.

Everyone who loves doing something, everyone who finds joy in a certain thing, always has a time in their lives where it feels like the process of doing what you used to love, what used to come so effortless, brings nothing but disappointment and a huge void inside your life; so much so that you actually come to loathe it and you don't stop until whatever it is that's blocking the muse goes away…

And what was blocking my muse was occupying every living cell in my being to find a reason or logic to why my parents had split up… and since I hadn't been able to find it… I couldn't read, write or even be comfortable with myself.

I know it sounds silly, but dad's always said that pens and paper are my lungs and I hadn't really understood that phrase until I actually felt like I couldn't breathe when I'd spent like two weeks without writing something.

So yeah, it was becoming overwhelmingly stressful, and that day, hours before I asked him… it'd reached its boiling point.

--------------------------------------------------

I know I keep flashbacking to a lot of moments in my life but please, just blame it on my parents… I know I do anyway.

I'm so linked to them by now that almost every little thing reminds me of them. Like, if I'm in a cab or walking down the mall and I hear the song "Hot Girls in Good Moods" by Butch Walker, I totally remember a time dad scared me for life when he was quietly lip-synching the song while we were washing dishes in his apartment. I swear the image is still vivid in my mind. Or if I hear some snobby girl saying the word "peachy", I somehow picture my mom saying that in a sarcastic manner. That one, I still don't know why it is…

But the point is, everything in my life reminds me of something they've done or said and I think this moment in my life is crucial because it sums up everything.

It's the moment that links it all.

----------------------------------------------------

I don't know why exactly, but for this particular day, I don't remember that many details; at least not the trivial ones. For almost any other day in my short life experience, I can totally mention and say how was the weather, or if the sky had a bunch of stars in it at night, or if there was music in the background, or any other question that honestly doesn't contribute to my point at all. That's another thing I learned from mom because since I was little, she always said that paying attention to little stuff would certainly open you doors that nothing and no one else would be able to shut later. Of course, when I was growing up that didn't make much sense, but as I grew older, it just kinda stuck with me!

And it stuck with me for every single aspect of any regular day… except for the trivialities in _this_ day.

So, I don't know which day of the week it was, or if it was raining, or if it was sunny, or if it was hot, cold… freezing. All I know is that mom was busy…

She had a deadline.

To set things straight; as I've probably mentioned before, mom's neurotic. By nature. The woman uses the phrase: "My caffeine is my attitude" and boy is she right! I don't know from where she gets the strength to do everything she does but she just does things with this happy, excited-bordering-on-creepy attitude, even when she's exhausted as hell!

In more ways than one, the woman is my superhero!

She likes to have things programmed and organized, and when she sets her mind to do something it doesn't matter if the sky is falling down outside… everything has to get done because she said so!

That's her personality any common and regular day, but when she has a deadline… a deadline that coincidentally falls with Grandma Kirsten's annual Christmukkah dance, and with the day she'd set at the beginning of the year would be "monthly cleaning"… the woman just flips out!

And guess what happened that day? That's right! All the events I mentioned decided to fuse together to make mom lose it, and, of course, mom can't lose it alone…

She has to drive me crazy too!

To be honest, just like her, I have those quirks I mentioned earlier. Maybe I learned them from idolizing her so much or she just gave them to me when she brought me to this Earth. Nature, nurture or maybe both; I don't know. The thing is that I was already a teeny-tiny freaked out too because we can't avoid "monthly cleaning"! That's a sacrilege! After Ethan moved out, mom and I created this routine where we pick a day of the month to put the house upside down by cleaning and throwing away stuff that we keep in our incessant "paying attention to details" theory; and we do it _together._ But mom had her deadline and as much as we would've loved to clean into the night when she'd be all done with her work, we couldn't avoid Christmukkah dance either! We would never hear the end of it from Grandpa and Uncle Seth, and there's only so much ramble I can take!

So there we were, two mad women trying to figure out what to do because if we didn't manage to do what we'd planned, the end of the world as we knew it was gonna arrive and nothing would ever be the same.

But of course, two obsessed brains work better than one and we decided, well, the obvious: mom would bury herself into editing whatever novel she was editing back then, and I would turn the house upside down on my own. That way, we both achieved some peace of mind and wouldn't drive each other crazy by the end of the night.

It was a win-win.

So once I heard the door of the study slam shut, the house was all out there for me to burn if I'd wanted to! And since I was so eager to fulfill our plans I wasted no time taking the task at hand.

I guess that now that I look back at it, that was a way for me to distract myself from the fact that I hadn't written anything good, or at least anything that I hadn't considered as ramble or babble, for almost a month. They say that when you turn on the vacuum, you turn off your conscience and I guess that that day, it was like that for me. At least that way I wasn't all bitter and closed up in my room thinking of ways of understanding everything that was wrong with the world outside. At least that way I wasn't analyzing events or reasoning details that were doing anything except opening doors like mom had said when I was little…

Instead of using my energies in trying to find logic on illogical things, I decided to turn my efforts into dusting, vacuuming and rearranging every single thing my eyes landed on.

But when my eyes landed on mom's room, I had no idea I was about to confirm she'd been right all the way.

Opening your eyes to little stuff would totally open you doors that nothing and no one would be able to shut out later…

Doors to the exquisite and sometimes frustrating mystery of the unknown.

---------------------------------------------

For all the eighteen years I've lived in this planet I haven't had to move once, at least not for now. I know college is just right around the corner and that I would probably have to pack everything I hold dear to my heart in boxes for me to carry to the world of UC Berkeley. I know I'm making it sound like I'm gonna be exiled or something when college isn't too far from where I live actually, but reading too many romance novels has made of me a drama queen… deal with it!

Whenever I saw on TV shows or in movies how people pack stuff in boxes I always said to myself the question every average human being has ever asked themselves at least once: "how is it that you can pack your life into just one box?", but of course, I added something of my own to the phrase: "you can't take in that box the stuff that really matters anyway!"

And I still stand by that the majority of the time. When you're moving your life from one place to the next, it's not like you're gonna pack in a box the things that really matter, which are your experiences, how safe you've felt, or the air you breathed when you were in that place you're now leaving behind. All that stuff is what really makes a difference at the end of the day… not the material stuff you are dragging along with you.

I always thought people who surrounded me thought the same thing, especially mom, since she holds dear to her heart the things that are priceless. I'd always thought of mom as the tough girl, the restless girl who didn't need a reminder of things in her life because she'd treasured them in her heart, where it actually mattered… but I hadn't really stopped myself to see that mom was just as fragile as everyone else…

I hadn't really paid attention that mom had a box of packed stuff hidden behind a lot of things in her closet.

At first, when I saw that box I wrinkled my brow because it just seemed so silly… to me, having a box of stuff that remind you of a certain period in your life is as useless as trying to encapsulate ocean air in a bottle! It just doesn't work the way you want it to! But, as I opened the box, I started feeling more and more intrigued by it's contents and there was a moment… just a moment in my life where I actually felt like time stopped.

It felt like, somehow, I was feeling what mom felt when she'd seen those objects for the first time… even though I hadn't ever heard her talking about that stuff hidden in the dark of the closet.

I carefully opened the lid of the box to reveal a white teddy bear right there in the surface. It was so simple and so cute that I couldn't avoid smiling. The thought of dad giving my mom a stuffed animal was so amusing, especially since dad is the one who rarely shows any feelings unless he feels like the emotions are drowning him. Of course, I wasn't even sure my dad had given that to her, at that point it was just wishful thinking, but something inside me kept saying that the box had something to do with dad. I'm not sure when or how I started feeling it… I just know I did.

After I'd carefully studied the teddy bear, I put it back in the box to grab another object held captive inside for only God knew how long. And I stumbled myself with this book… this brown book with a golden engraving that read: _"Taylor"_ in a corner, and nothing else than that. It didn't have a name or what was the book about… it just said plainly _Taylor_ and I realized… that was definitely a gift from dad.

He's just that simple. Every word that comes out of his mouth it's so simple, wise and deep that even when I hadn't held that book before in my life I could feel it was his doing… dad's just that easy to read, even when he's not there. Of course, the fact that he gave me a notebook once with just the same design and with silver engraving that said: _"Lillian"_ was pretty much a give away too.

So I started flipping through pages and pages and I realized it was a collection of poems I hadn't heard once in my life. They were all love poems, none of them by the same author, and like I said, dad's not a guy who reads romance that much… so I sat there for a while trying to think why he'd given that to mom. But then I remembered one of mom's favorite hobbies is to collect love poems, so I smiled nostalgically to myself because it was so romantic of him, to get into a world that's obviously not his own, just to search for things he knew mom would love.

The emotion started welling up in me and the more I saw inside the box, the more excited and intrigued I felt. If the meeting with the Dean hadn't been proof enough to tell me how much they deserved to be together, then seeing necklaces, dinner receipts, and whole bunch of things that to me didn't make sense surely made me realize mom and dad's love was beyond powerful… I even stumbled upon pictures of them on graduation! I hadn't even known mom and dad had known each other in high school! The more I saw there, the more I wanted to know about how pure their love was and about why they weren't together if they'd love each other so long.

So I started searching and going through every little paper that I could think of inside there, my hunger for finding answers getting the best of me. And it worked… I found something that honestly confused me more.

It was this paper, carefully folded, that just like the book, simply said _"Taylor"_.

At the beginning I thought it was a love letter. The possibility didn't seem too weird for me. After all dad had gone looking for poems I hadn't even heard to give them to mom, so the thought of him writing her a letter didn't shock me. But as I unfolded the paper and started reading, my heart stopped because it was a love letter, but not written in dad's handwriting.

I still can remember what it said exactly:

"_Dear Taylor:_

_There is no right way to start this letter, because as I'm writing this I still don't have a clue exactly of what I want you to feel or think from it. So I apologize in advance if somehow the feelings declared here offend you in any way._

_When I met you the fall of freshman year in 2007, it was impossible for me not to fall for you. You were this babbly neurotic American girl who, behind that crazy exterior had hidden a broken heart. Who ever had broken your heart had been someone you truly loved and I felt so attracted by that bitter-sweetness in you that I immediately felt compelled to you and wished you'd love me that way too. So when I started having you in my life as a friend, it changed completely… I think more than you'll ever know._

_Because you still don't know I've always been in love with you. _

_It's funny how we never had a chance to start something because when you started the Sorbonne that fall a long time ago, you had your walls up so high that I couldn't reach them, and when I finally felt you tumbling them down and maybe opening your heart a little to me, you went back to America for a wedding and never returned. And still, in more ways than one, you took my heart with you and you never gave it back._

_At least not until I saw you again here, in Prague._

_When I saw you walking down the street, I thought I was looking at a ghost, because that was what you'd turned into for me. You'd disappeared without giving answers, without saying anything, but somehow I forgave all of that just for seeing you again after almost a decade. So I approached you and you smiled that breathtaking smile of yours. You told me you were there on vacation and the conversation felt so easy, like those six months when I first met you. You told me all the basics about your life… low profile copy-editor, graduated from Berkeley… but then you said married with two children… and I figured life couldn't be as magical for once. _

_I don't know why I was so surprised. You are beautiful and it was only a matter of time for you to go back to the States and find a guy who wanted everything you had to offer… but I guess that in some place deep inside me I still wanted you to be mine. And when I met your husband I have to admit there was that part of me that started wondering what might've been if you hadn't gone to that wedding on freshman year. And I have to admit too that when I told you I was working as editor in chief in an international magazine and offered you a job, I was secretly hoping you'd felt tempted to stay here, and somehow be close to you again._

_I know it was selfish of me because you have your life all built up now, like you said yesterday when you turned down the job, you love Ryan and the reason you stayed in the States and will remain there, no matter how many amazing job offers could come was because of him. Because you love him and your family. And I know it's selfish of me to write you this letter telling you how I feel about you when I never even dare to tell you this in person… but I had to tell you._

_The__ world is so big out there, Taylor… there are so many wonderful opportunities for you to achieve greatness. And I wish you nothing less than that… _

_Be happy… be happy with Ryan… with your family…_

_Who'll love you always…_

_Angelo._

----------------------------------------

I guess I don't need to tell you how… confusing… reading that letter was. Again the mysterious Prague made an appearance and if I hadn't understood the context of it the first time I heard about it while Aunt Summer and mom were talking on the phone, reading that left me with even more confusion, frustration and overwhelming thoughts.

I mean, who was this guy? Who was this Angelo guy they'd met in Prague? And why did I had the sudden feeling that this letter had something to do with my parent's separation?

And that's when the frustration, annoyance and blood boiling up came to play.

If that letter had something to do with my parent's separation then nothing made sense at all! Mom hadn't taking a job offer far, far away from here; she'd decided to stay here with us because she loved all of us! She'd never turn her back on Ethan or me… and up until that day I knew she'd never turn her back on dad either… then why had they split up?

Before I could register it, tears were rolling freely down my face. I bet you're thinking those were tears of confusion, and anger and stress… but you wanna know why I was crying really?

Because I understood why mom had kept that box and that letter stashed somewhere inside her closet.

It was because she couldn't hold them dear in her heart, because most likely, carrying those priceless things in her heart hurt more than I can ever, ever imagine.

--------------------------------------------------

We've all felt that urge to get answers, and if it's not an urge to get answers, it's an urge to get something!

I wanted closure, I _needed_ closure.

By that point I didn't care if I wasn't entitled as a daughter to ask questions about my parent's relationship. I didn't care if I didn't have a right to question what was going around in with the "grown up's" lives. I didn't care if things were too complicated for me to understand… I simply didn't care.

I wanted answers and I wanted them as soon as possible. But of course, I'm my dad's daughter at the end of the day and as much as I wanted to go downstairs, pull my mom out of the study and drown her with all my questions, I was so filled with emotions and a rush of annoyance in me that I couldn't quite handle.

So, as I put the box back in its corner, I started doing what I think I always do best: Pretend I hadn't found a thing. "Out of sight, out of mine" right? If there was a moment for me to prove if that saying was true, it was then. I couldn't just allow myself to be annoyed and confused. In only a matter of hours we were going to Grandma's party which meant a whole bunch of eyes were gonna be studying my behavior and I didn't feel like yelling my lungs out in my Grandma's Gallery. Because I knew that if I kept thinking about that letter, that was gonna be the end of the evening: An Atwood causing a scene at a public event, and that, was too cliché for me.

But as I ended the cleaning and it was time for mom and me to go to the Gallery, where the dance was taking place, I realized I couldn't pretend I was ok. I was anything but ok! I don't know if you get how mad and frustrated I was, or if you even understand my reasons for me being that way, but I just felt so trapped.

I couldn't keep being in this contradictory roller coaster with my parents. I know that the average teenager doesn't care about her parent's relationship that much just as long as they get an allowance at the end of each week, but for me it was different. My parents represented everything that I believed in and I needed to believe love could conquer all. I'd spent so much time, almost since they'd broken up when I was eight, forcing my heart to believe love didn't exist just to confirm it did and that it was everlasting. But if love was everlasting then it had to conquer it all. That's the way it works… But it wasn't conquering it all, at least not with my family.

I couldn't believe love was actually worth the fight until the contradictory rollercoaster came to an end and I could see it with my own eyes…

And my soul was begging to see it. And if for some reason love didn't conquer anything after all… I at least needed to know why.

I wanted closure…

I _needed_ closure.

--------------------------------------

Have you ever felt… tortured? Have you ever felt like you don't belong? Have you ever felt like your body is in one place and your mind is a thousand miles away? Have you ever felt like your chest is carrying 2000 pounds and your heart can't keep beating? Have you ever felt the need to speak your mind but you feel tongue-tied? Have you ever been scared? I'm sure you have, but…

Have you ever felt all those things, all at once?

I honestly hope you haven't. I wish I hadn't felt like that on Grandma's party two years ago.

The minute I entered the gallery I immediately felt like I wasn't supposed to be there. Everyone was laughing and joking… totally submerged in the colors of the Christmukkah decorations. Tons of people had their eyes fixated on some of the paintings my Grandma had on sale for charity because of the holidays, others were just dancing to the soft music in the background that I really didn't find amusing. The environment was filled with laughter and happiness and my mood was far from that… watching every smile from other people faces felt like a torture because at some level, I coveted their happiness. Seeing that fate wanted everyone else around me to achieve love instead of my family made me want to scream and run out of there. The second I saw the whole scene in there I wanted to turn on my heels and get the hell out. But I knew I couldn't do it. So I opted for the less harmful solution.

Alienate myself from everyone else.

I think that for the first time in my life I let myself stop pretending and thought: _"Hey, I tried to act fine on the way here and it didn't work… so there's no point in acting like nothing's wrong when it actually is!"_ So I sat myself on a table and didn't get up from there.

Now that I think about it, it was maybe selfish of me to act like that. I remember I didn't even say hello to anyone and whoever dared to go to the table I was sitting in was punished with my glares and rudeness. I'm not proud of that, because I'm normally all for the kindness and the smiling… but I don't regret ever being like that at that party…

You wanna know why? Because it got my parents to really notice me.

--------------------------------------------------

I sat there alone, immersed in my thoughts and anger for about twenty minutes before my mom dared to come to my side. The moment I saw she was coming my way, my heart started beating faster because I wasn't sure if I was gonna be able to contain myself if she stayed there for long. I wanted to ask her a bunch of things, I did, but I also know my mom. I knew that if I started asking something about her and dad there, in public, with him at the other side of the room, she was gonna start feeling uncomfortable and ultimately sad… and I love her too much to make her sad.

I've seen the lengths her heart can go to and I knew that if I as much as mentioned dad and the letter I'd discovered in the same sentence, I would've pushed her boundaries further than she could take them… and I couldn't do that to mom… I simply couldn't.

So she sat there in silence, my head repeating over and over: _"Lillian, control yourself"_ while I bit my lip for me not to say something that I would regret later; but watching the ultimate concerned expression from her face when my eyes found hers, just made it a lot harder.

"_So how does this work?"_ she asked, tilting her head to the side a little while she studied my features carefully.

Watching her eyes in mine, almost made me cry. I've never been able to hide from her when I'm upset and I wanted to tell her what was going on inside me, what I was thinking, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't just break her heart for mine to find peace.

So I just rolled my eyes, not because I wanted to be rude anymore, but because I couldn't just look at her. Looking at her would make me break… and I'm not a breaker!

"_And you're rolling your eyes at me!"_ she said trying to make eye contact with me while her mouth just gaped open. _"Lilly look at me…"_

"_What is it?"_ I said trying to sound as tough as possible. Trying to come across rude so she would leave me alone before I could break.

"_I'm trying to make an effort here…"_ she said, while she closed her eyes, a hint of pain in her voice. _"So please, would you tell me how this works?"_

It was the second time she'd asked that question and the curiosity won the battle. I looked at her straight in the eyes while my demeanor softened; partially because I wanted to know what she was talking about, mainly because I couldn't stand the pain in her voice.

"_How does what work?"_ I asked my voice less rude than before.

"_You throwing a teenage tantrum at me…"_ she said while she pointed her fingers at me in her usual Taylor way. I couldn't help but smile lightly when I saw her like that. Of course she thought I was throwing a tantrum!

In ways… I was.

"_I honestly thought you were better than that"_ she said sarcastically once she noticed my half smile _"you didn't even throw tantrums when you were a kid… but hey, you're a teenager… that was bound to happen sooner or later"_

"_Is that what you think this is?"_ I said almost laughing then. Almost forgetting what it was that had me away from everyone else. It felt so safe… so comfortable. I could almost pretend like nothing had happened!

"_Well, then tell me what it is…"_ mom said reaching out for my hand and I immediately looked at our hands intertwined when she did it. _"You can talk to me…"_

In normal situations, I can talk to mom about any subject in my life… she's knows everything about me! Literally everything… but I couldn't talk to her about this because this wasn't about me at all! Just when I heard her say that, I immediately remembered why it was I was wishing she'd leave me alone. I couldn't resist having walls with mom but I couldn't tear them down… not there.

Once again I realized pretending can't last long.

I immediately pulled my hand back and looked someplace else. I raised my wall even higher and said in a tone that I honestly think killed me more than it did to mom: _"Mom… I don't wanna talk to anyone ok? So would you please leave me alone?"_

From the expression on her face I realized that shock her more than I'd imagine. Once I saw her like that I immediately regretted it but I regretted it even more when she rose from the chair and said in a heartbreaking tone: _"You do wanna talk about something… you just don't wanna talk to me"_

I'd always thought that I was the one who knew how to read people. I'd always thought that I could see inside everyone's mind just from looking at their eyes, but for a moment I forgot from whom I got that from… and she'd read me…

I watched her walk away a few steps with a big weight in my chest. I knew that had hurt her, the fact that I didn't want to talk to her. But when she turned on her heels and looked back at me… I realized her eyes were kinda watery so I knew I'd accomplish exactly what I didn't want in the first place.

I'd hurt mom.

"_Lillian…__ you don't need to lie to me, don't forget I know you…"_ she said and she walked away completely.

I hadn't read her right. It hadn't been the fact that I didn't wanna talk to her… it'd been the fact that for the first time, I'd tried to pretend with her.

And she'd caught it.

-------------------------------------------------------

Music is indispensable for us human beings. The majority of people can relate a certain moment in their lives to a song, or we remember a certain event because there was a specific sound that happened to describe what we were feeling that exact moment when everything changed.

We all have a song we consider the soundtrack of our lives and I'm no different.

After I watched mom go away, I must've looked to the same spot in the distance for what felt like a lifetime. I wasn't sure of what to feel actually. If I should go back and feel frustrated and angry or if I should focus on the pain I'd just caused mom _because_ I was frustrated and angry. Either way I knew that standing from that chair was not an option.

So I sat there… looking at the distance still picturing mom's face when she left… my heart feeling sad and miserable, not really paying attention to the world around me, when this amazing, nostalgic piano, followed by a saxophone started playing in the background.

The music started tearing me down while talking to my heart and the softer the notes, the more crumbled I felt because I couldn't handle it anymore. I've always liked to think about myself as the tough independent girl. After all I learned from the best, but it was too much for me.

I was sitting there, looking through my tears while listening to Kenny G's The Wedding Song when I manage to see someone leaning in front of me, while reaching a hand to my own. A hand like the one I'm holding right now.

"_Do you wanna dance?"_ dad asked while he ran his hand through my face to clean the tears that I hadn't even realized had started to fall.

I smiled through my tears while I pressed my face to his hand. Sometimes I'm mesmerized for the ways dad manages to cut deep into my heart. He's so simple and so sensitive… and I love him so much. He smiled at me but at the same time looked at me with pained eyes because I know he can't stand to see me cry. I know that he lives for me… my pain's his pain and my joy's his joy… that's the way we are.

The sight of him leaning in front of me cracked a smile through my tears and without even saying a word, I just took his hand and he started leading the way to the dance floor… just like a couple of minutes ago.

That's my number one moment in the history of dad and me. And I'm sure that nothing, absolutely nothing that would happen between us in the years to come would top that day, that Christmukkah dance when I was 16. I don't think even my wedding day would live up to that, because there… it was just dad and me… and no one else.

I'd always heard through uncle Seth's rambles how dad used to save people when he was in high school, but whenever I heard those amazing stories I always thought that he'd never save me, because I was born with the faculty of saving myself. And of saving everyone else too. But that moment… that second when he leaned down to me while the song was playing in the background… dad saved me from everything that was going on inside my head. He saved me from my confusion and he put my worries on hold for three minutes and twenty one seconds which was the time the song lasted.

He saved me from myself.

Sometimes it amazes me how much we click. There's no doubt I'm Ryan Atwood's daughter because we click so much in silence. For us, words are overrated. For those three minutes he didn't need to ask what was going on inside me and for those three minutes I didn't have to ask anything about him and mom. We didn't need to say anything because the soundtrack of _my_ life was playing… 'The wedding song' was talking for us in the way we talk: without words.

Sometimes we see more than we think when we listen… when we touch the silence…

And I did… we did.

-------------------------------------------------

I nestled my head on dad's chest until the song was over. I didn't want to spoil what I knew back then would be the most amazing moment in my life and I know he didn't want that either. I just know him so much. But it was then, or never. He'd made me feel so comfortable and so relieved… like I said, more relieved than I think I've ever felt in my life… so I had to ask…

I had to.

"_Dad, what happened in Prague?"_

I felt how he immediately tensed up and leaned his head down a little, trying to look at me, which forced me to stand up straight and look straight to his eyes.

"_How do you know about Prague Lillian?"_ he asked, not mad or anything like that. Just surprised I knew something about it.

"_Does it bother you…?"_ I asked my tone a little shy _"that I know something?"_

"_No…"_ he said looking at some place else, somewhere behind me. _"I'm just wondering how you know something about it…"_

"_Well… I don't know much…"_ I said swaying my body with his dancing to some other song _"that's why I'm asking…"_

"_I'm guessing you don't know that from your mom"_ he asked giving me the look… knowing I'd done something I wasn't supposed to.

"_No… mom didn't say anything"_ I said looking at the floor and suddenly the guilt of having gone through mom's stuff and having eavesdropped months before on a phone conversation kicking in. _"I'm sorry dad… I just stumbled upon some evidence and Prague sort of came out. Besides you can't blame me for wanting answers…"_

"_What kinda answers do you want?"_ he said glaring at me. And at that moment I thought he was definitely mad at me for putting him on the spot.

"_Real ones…"_ I said boldly. I don't know from where the courage came from but I said that. _"I want a real reason to why my parents aren't together when they still love each other… when they are each other's true love…"_

From the half smile that formed on his lips I noticed he hadn't seen that one coming from me. Ever since I was little whenever he'd given me that tone and glare I'd just settled for whatever he'd given me and if it would've been some other theme of conversation I would've probably settled for something less than real answers, but not with this.

"_Sunshine…"_ he said while he tapped my nose. _"I've clearly underestimated you…"_

"_You love her dad… and she loves you"_ I said avoiding his attempt of changing the subject. _"When true love's present nothing else is supposed to matter"_

That last phrase escaped my lips, I'm not sure how. I hadn't shared with anyone my theory of love… mainly because it was just that… a theory. I hadn't proved myself that it was real… and the secret agenda behind this was that I wanted to make true love more than just a theory for me… more than just empty facts I'd gotten from romance novels.

"_Define true love"_ dad said again looking someplace else with an intrigued expression marking his features.

"_You're not changing the subject on me dad…"_ I said shaking my head from side to side while I half smiled at him.

"_I'm not changing it…"_ he said looking straight to me _"I'm answering whatever you want answered just as long as you answer me what true love is for you…"_

When he said that I actually felt like my heart skipped a beat. Was it really gonna be that easy? Was it that all I had to do to get answers? There wasn't going to be the classic 'you're too young for this' speech? It actually scared me a little to know that I was so close to getting what I wanted… what I needed.

"_True love is…"_ I started, letting my mind wander to the places I'd only traveled alone. To the places I knew more than my own life… _"This intense sensation that you feel when you're with someone. That tickle you feel inside you when that someone reaches your hand, or that smile that comes to your face when your thoughts drift to the moments you'd spent together. Is the fear of having to face your life without that person and the certainty of knowing that when you're with that someone you need nothing else… because your world is already complete."_

I'm sure you're thinking I'm some sort of poet but please if you're thinking that… stop. It actually makes me feel stupid to know I said that back then. It's funny because from the look on dad's face when he heard that coming from me I'd thought I'd described true love greatly… that I'd won and had convinced him that he should go running straight to mom… but it wasn't like that… It was far from being like that.

"_Lillian…"_ dad said with a tender and kind look on his eyes while he took a strand of hair from my forehead. _"you're so much like your mom…"_

"_I know…"_ I said with a smile on my face, while I noticed how he looked again to someplace behind me.

"_She used to think true love was that too… but then we realized that wasn't it…"_ he said once he focused his eyes back on me.

When I heard that… it just kinda exasperated me. What did he mean with that? How come that wasn't true love?

"_Alright… then show me dad…"_ I said in bit of a defensive tone _"Show me what true love is…"_

I noticed how his chest let go of a deep breath I'm sure he wasn't even aware he was holding in. And right there, I'd known I'd touched a nerve. Our blue eyes were fixated on each other's and it just made the moment more intense than I could've bargained for.

"_What you just described sunshine…"_ he said looking straight to me with a look of pure love _"that's perfection. And true love is anything but perfect."_

I remember I felt like my heart was being ripped out. How come true love wasn't perfect! That was what every single thing in pop culture was trying to teach me! That was what every romance novel or fairy tale keeps telling you right? I hadn't even considered the fact that love could be some thing other than perfection…

I had no idea I was about to be taught a lesson that would stick with me for the rest of my life. I had no idea there are a bunch of things romance novels and text books leave out…

"_True love is based on sacrifice, Lilly… Pure, utter sacrifice"_

His eyes were again somewhere else and this time, I had to look what was taking his attention away from me. He was being so distracted and he even sighed when he looked away…

And that's when I turned around and saw the predictable and yet, unpredictable thing that he was looking at. He was looking to mom at the distance… leaning against a counter her eyes a little bit lost, just like the look she'd had in her eyes when she'd gone away from me.

He was looking at her in a way no romance novel or TV show has ever described… and I realized then that dad doesn't just live for me… he lives for her too… for his sacrifice.

He took in a deep breath and then said: _"A deal's a deal… whatcha wanna know?"_

Surprisingly I didn't start asking questions right away. I was just overwhelmed by the sight of him looking at mom that way… that I just nestled my head back to his chest and before the actually heavy and important part started…

We touched the silence once more…

**So hit the button! You know you want to... LOL!**


	4. Part IV

**Author's Note: **_Ok guys! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I hadn't updated this story in two long months. To be completely honest with you, I'd had a little bit of a block with it, and "This Broken Road" was on a roll, so I had to write what the muse ordered... lol. But apparently, the muse came back from vacation in Hawaii or Puerto Rico to inspire me, and as you can see, this is another quite long chapter. (This story apparently doesn't have short chapters... lol). Still, I very much appreciate all of you who read until the end of last chapter and reviewed faithfully. You know reviews always made my day a little brighter. _

_Oh! Also, I wanted to take this moment to tell you, that I posted a new story, for all of you subscribers of this story that feel like reading another one of my RT rambles... lol. It's called **"The Memory Will Never Die"** and it's basically about Taylor coming back from France for Ryan's graduation to see him after two years. I would love it if you could check that out. _

_So... ready to "know the journey"?_

_Scroll away my dears, there's plenty to scroll away... lol._

_----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

**Show Me What True Love Is…**

**Part IV**

"_Sunshine…?"_

"Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice."

I know I read that somewhere… can't remember where it was though. It doesn't really matter anyway. I'm one of the few people who can say they know that for a fact. Although, I'm not sure if in my case, knowing that to save something you have to sacrifice it, is a good thing. It depends a lot on how you wanna look at it.

Ok… this is how I know I'm nervous. I'm rambling in my head the way mom would… this has got to stop!

"_Lillian…!"_

Huh? Oh right! Back to the world of the living…

"_Yeah…!"_ I say shaking my head violently while I look at dad. He had this big concerned look on his face… and that's how I know I must've been in automatic pilot mode for quite sometime now…

"_Are you ok?"_ he says touching my forehead and running a hand over my cheek.

Sometimes it makes me laugh to see how quick he is in getting worried about me. He's always asking if I'm comfortable doing something, or if I can handle things… and even when I've said like ten times I can do things, that I'm fine, an "are you sure you're ok?" always manages to escape his lips… If I remember correctly, he was the one flipping out on my first day of kindergarten and _mom_ was the one telling _him_ to calm down! Just try to imagine the hurricane that is my mother in complete peace while my dad's the one going at a thousand miles per hour… Now that's a worrying thought!

I just smile at him, totally giving him a sympathetic smile because I know that look of expectation in his eyes, I've gotten it more times than I can recall actually, because he always gets worried when I get lost in my own train of thought…

"_For how long did I zone out this time?"_ I say looking at him apologetically.

He rolls his eyes a little at me while he sighs and I know that at least he's relieved I'm aware of what just happened… he smiles back at me and he answers in a bit of a dramatic tone: _"The whole dance?"_

"_I'm sorry…"_ I say putting my hand in my forehead while I turn my head to the side and again… my eyes just land on the podium I'm supposed to be standing on in a while…

I would so love to kick Ethan's ass right now!

"_The dance was supposed to take your mind off__ of that…"_ he says while he points at the podium and smiles _"not making you think more about it…You're zoning out on me!"_

"_Come on! It's not that big a deal!"_ I say, trying to believe that myself while I hit his arm playfully and some other song starts to play in the background. _"I zone out on you all the time!"_

"_Yeah but not like that…!"_ he says in a mocking tone that only manages to make me smile more. _"Are you sure you can do this…?"_

Without noticing it, my chest releases a heavy breath that seems to make my heart race more than before. Of all the times dad has asked me that question, I think this is the first time I've considered telling him I can't do this. I've always been afraid of talking to the masses but surprisingly, I don't think this is about getting in front of all those people anymore, it's about what it means.

For the longest of times, I always wished I had the opportunity to talk about them… to say everything I thought needed to be said. For the longest time I wanted to yell my lungs out and share my frustration. And now that I actually have the opportunity… now that I see things crystal clear… It freaks me out.

Usually I'm not the one to mix deep thoughts with rock lyrics but, Daughtry says it better than I ever could: _"Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you just might get it all"_

"_Of course she can do it!"_ Ethan says from behind me and I turn around to face him giving him a glare. After all, he's the one who got me to do this and now that I almost had the green light to back out, he chooses to show up.

"_Well, well, well, if it isn't my number one favorite person in the world!"_ I say sarcastically and he just answers smiling while he rolls his eyes a little.

"_Dad…"_ he says while he looks at my dad and I crack a smile. Every time I hear him call my parents like that, my heart always melts. I love the guy to death even when he always manages to put me on the spot…_ "Can I borrow the sunshine?"_

Dad looks at me, a little insecure about letting me go, that endearing touch of concern still imprinted in his face. He looks for some sort of approval in my eyes while I nod lightly… and then he says a bit reluctantly: _"Sure… just don't let her zone out that much…"_

"_She won't… I promise…"_ Ethan says while he takes my hand and guides us out of the dance floor.

"_So…"_ he says once we stop walking while he places himself in front of me. _"You're nervous huh?"_

"_I'm the broody girl in this family, what did you expect?"_ I say moving my head, emphasizing my words.

"_Lillian__, you're gonna figure it out…"_ he says while he grabs me by the shoulders and talks in a reassuring tone.

"_You said that a month ago when you signed me up for this mess and so far, that hasn't happened…"_ I say while I take his hands away from my shoulders, a little nervousness getting the best of me.

It's just that I don't get it! He's nine years older than me for crying out loud! He was Valedictorian of his class, and he's practically the boy version of mom! Why on Earth did he ask _me_ to do this? I've spent more time than I usually do brooding tonight, rambling in my own head in an effort to give my thoughts some sort of structure and I still don't have anything!

"_Relax…"_ he says while he looks at me and talks to me in a rather sympathetic tone I don't like…

"_Don't patronize me, Ethan…"_ I say exhausted...

"_I'm not…!"_ he says while he raises his voice a little, coming across frustrated too. _"You're the one to do this… you just don't realize it!"_

"_Is that so?"_ I say while I put my hands in my hips and he smiles a little. He's always said that when I do that, even a stranger can tell I'm mom's daughter. _"Why don't you tell me so I can see it clearly?"_

He sighs ever so painfully slow, almost as if he's about to give me the puppy eyes I can't resist. It doesn't really matter what's my mood, he always knows that he can work his way inside my soul just from looking into my blue eyes with his own. But this time, I'm not sure that's gonna work. I feel so trapped and nervous with all the pressure this speech is giving me that, if he thinks "I'm the one to do this", he's gonna have to prove it to me somehow…

"_Because it's not about the destination…"_ he says while he takes a look around the place _"it's always about the journey…"_

I look at him a little puzzled; because that's something I've always known to be true, in fact, I think I was the one who told him that on one of his issues with Hannah back in the day… But like I said, I think I know Ethan better than I know myself, I know he's not done yet…So when he hugs me and kisses my forehead I'm not that surprised…

What surprises me actually is what comes out of his mouth right in this moment. Once again, the guy manages to say something that clings deep into my soul. How does he do it? I'm sure I'll never figure it out exactly. All I can say is that, just like I know him better than I know myself, he seems to know me better than he knows himself…

"_You're the only__ one who deserves to stand up there in a couple of minutes… Because you're the only one who really knows the journey…"_

---------------------------------------------------

I know I must've said this in my head more than three times during the night, but it's the truth: Mom and dad are always gonna be a complicated subject for me. I'm sure I've also said why… it's because they're complex individuals to begin with!

Of course, when I was little I couldn't see it. I was just the typical six year-old who was just happy she was in the middle of mom and dad watching a movie. The typical little girl who viewed her home like a castle where dad was the king, mom was the queen, the brother the prince and she was the little princess. Nothing was bad in the world because you lived in this little bubble where everything was fine and nothing could go wrong.

But once my parents separated, being the perceptive person I've always been, I slowly started seeing them as what they really were, I started pulling them out of my fairytale and watching them as people who were just trying to find their way… just like I was.

I always thought the cure for mom and dad's craziness was to be with each other. That the key to their perfection was joining their flaws together…

But once dad started answering questions on that dancefloor and I got to know the journey…

I realized they're perfect because they're not.

-------------------------------------------------------

The moments after dad started answering what had happened between him and mom, I thought I knew everything that needed to be known about them. They had chemistry, their profound love was shared through glances, and all they needed was to get back together. To me, it was enough with both of them demonstrating their love quietly through their awkwardness to know they were meant to be.

Sometimes it surprises me how, for someone who desperately wanted their parents back together, I knew nothing about their story. It amazes me to see how my foundations to say they were meant to be together were based in just an encounter I'd witnessed when I was 15 and nothing else.

I hate to admit it, but maybe back in those days I was just some scorned child who wanted her parents back together just… because. I didn't know anything about them, about whom they'd been before they were in each other's lives or how they'd met… I had no idea if they were this tortured relationship or if dad had hurt mom or anything like that…

I didn't know who they were together and I still was playing matchmaker!

And I guess Dad knew that… because without me needing to ask he just said: _"I'd better start this from the beginning… because if you want to save something… you need to know what you're saving…"_

_­_-------------------------------------------

Ok… so from where do I start this part? I'm sorry if all of the sudden I'm going blank, but it's just that… whenever I think about that night it just makes my heart race. I think that's the only time where I've heard dad talk that much! I guess it's because we Atwood's tend to keep stuff inside us for so long that there comes a moment when we just need to say everything… We need to tell the story from the very beginning, partially because we want to try and make sense out of it even when we think it will never have it…

When everything started for them they were just leading two separate lives. Mom had just returned from France after getting married in a chapel in Burgundy. That's right, my mom; the responsible planner who thinks about everything twice before she actually does something, got married after two weeks of knowing some random smelly French dude. When dad told me that, my mouth just fell open, but after a while of thinking about it, I realized how crappy mom must've felt like. She's always been an overachiever and a person who always wants to get everything right. She realizes she's made a mistake before anyone else, so I guess she knew right away she'd done something bad… that's why she came back to America. She'd returned because she'd known she'd failed herself and everything about her moral standards was collapsing. Of course, getting away from the smelly dude was one of the major reasons why she'd come back, but still… I think she realized before everyone else that she'd been lost…

And dad well…I know I never would've guessed dad's end of the deal. I couldn't believe it when he told me he'd lost a girlfriend. When those words came out of his mouth I just felt this giant knot in my throat because it must've been so hard for him. Like I said, we Atwood's have a way of closing up when something hits us hard, so it hurt my own heart just to imagine how he must've felt during that time. He'd been lost… without purpose and just like he said, without wanting to live.

You have no idea how tough it was for me to hear my own dad saying that expression. It just pained me. The thought of dad so depressed that he'd think life isn't worth it just gave me chills and I almost felt the need of telling him to stop… when he again looked at mom and the distance and said: _"And that's when we found each other… when she found me"_

It all made sense when he said that and I smiled. He was lost, she was lost…

And they started being lost together.

----------------------------------------------

If there's a concept I know quite well, is the concept of hiding. I guess most of us are familiarized with the sentiment. Either it is because you messed something up, or because life gets too damn hard and difficult, because you're seeking safety or because you're plain brokenhearted by the ones surrounding you. We've all wanted to hide at some point. It's only natural.

But sooner or later you realize there's quite a reduced set of options you have when it comes to running away from what's written in the stars. From the things that are undeniable, at least.

And my parent's chemistry… was undeniable. I didn't need to be there at the beginning of their story to be sure that what I'm saying is true.

Sure, their personalities clashed at first because I guess you've got the idea by now that my dad's an introvert and well… my mom's not. So they both fought the, let's call it "impulse" for the lack of a better term even though that word is not at all what it was, of being together. Well, dad for the most part because of what had happened to him the last time he'd fallen in love.

As he himself said to me back then, being with my mom was quite unsettling because she was always moving fast; you were always tired of following her around and even when you thought you had no more energy left, you still couldn't bring yourself to stop. She had this drawing in effect on everyone around her… she still does. She has this intoxicating aura that makes you happy and all worked up emotionally at the same time… and dad wasn't sure he could handle that feeling of flying like a moth to a flame.

So he remained hidden for a while… saying it was too soon for him to be with her officially. But it only took a couple of weeks for him to realize being hidden away from her was the last place he wanted to be. So he stopped doing it… at least for a couple of years.

And mom's hiding part was quite actually the same as well. She ran away from him behind the excuse of "finding herself" when I guess, and this is me just speculating because if mom would ever know I so much as think this, she would kill me, she knew right away that who she was, was the crazy girl stalking around the brooding bad boy.

She moved to France for six months trying to run away from my dad and all they'd lived together. But, I guess that by moves of fate, she came back, rekindled her romance with dad without planning it and when she was supposed to be leaving for New York and then for France on a boat because she was banned from the airlines (complicated story, believe me), she got off in San Bernardino with my dad, never making it to the Sorbonne again because she didn't ever want to be away from him again.

Right now while I'm standing here still awestruck by Ethan's words, I just wonder why people always run away from things that are obvious… just to find out in the end they want to go back to the beginning. There are things in this life that just… are.

I never would've pictured my mom and dad as hiders or as runners… but dancing there with dad while he told me all of this, it was quite inevitable to join the dots together and see they were just trying to do it again. I hadn't heard the whole story yet and I already knew that whatever it was that had them away from each other for most of my life was just another excuse for hiding and a fancy way to say "I'm scared".

But like I said, I'm quite familiar with the concept of hiding… I did it behind my theory of love, behind my upset attitude, behind my teenage hormones… behind my books. Hiding is just another way to pretend things, and pretending can't last long. You can't hide from the things that are written in the stars no matter how much you try.

And even back then, without even knowing half of what I know now, I was positive that story was just high above there… untouchable and unbreakable.

------------------------------------

My parent's years at college were something my dad never went much into detail about; I really have no desires to know why. All I know is that their dorms weren't too far from each other and that apparently, dad used the sock, tie or whatever clothing it is you're supposed to hang on the door when you're getting "busy"; a lot. To channel my beloved Aunt Summer: "Ew".

But I guess that as I kept listening to dad's mind going down memory lane, I took comfort in the fact that they were happy. They weren't a tortured relationship like I'd briefly thought; they weren't bad for each other: they were just what two college students who were in love were supposed to be. I guess that for both of them, those years must've been difficult and scary precisely because there wasn't any drama going on.

Both my mom and my dad for all I know, lived their lives in total tragedy and drama and just plain mess, that being together and just being happy must've seemed weird at first. But they got used to it… at least until a few weeks before graduation…

Where I came along.

--------------------------------

My mom never had the perfect family. She had a dad who was MIA since she was 7, and well, Grandma Rony wasn't the easiest person to live with. Although from dad's reaction whenever he hears her name, I guess that's a mild understatement. Seriously, I can't believe the kind of stories and accusations I've heard about her, let alone all the horrible things she did to my mom even after I was born. She's like one of the warmest people in the world now, even if you can see a little of a bitchy attitude when things don't go her way. But ah well, a leopard can't change its spots, at least not entirely.

Veronica Townsend was an ice-queen, in the complete sense of the word. I remember when I was little, I was once looking for an explanation to why people always flinched when they heard me say "Grandma Rony" in my cute 5 year old voice, and Aunt Summer took me in her lap and said: _"Well, you remember in Cinderella there's an evil step-monster who's always saying mean things about Cinderella even though she doesn't deserve them?"_

I even remember I looked at her slightly confused and said _"yeah…?"_ to which mom and dad snorted in the background and Aunt Summer gave them a glare, turning back to face me, giving me a smile: _"Well sweetie, that was how Veronica…"_

"_Grandma Rony…"_ another set of laughs came from my parents and even my Uncle Seth in the other side of the room.

"_Your Grandma… was before you were born"_ Aunt Summer finished moving her head and looking at the grown ups with a satisfied grin on her face… to which I replied _"Grandma Rony was Cinderella?"_ and everyone started laughing, except, of course, Aunt Summer.

It took her a lifetime to get through to me that, in her cute little metaphor, mom was Cinderella and Grandma was the step-monster. I just couldn't believe in my naïve mind that the cute old lady who always bought me a whole bunch of books through the mail would've been so cold and shallow! Of course, as I grew older and I realized, first of all, that she sent me stuff through the mail instead of coming over like Grandma Kirsten, and secondly, that she'd bought me a copy of the Da Vinci Code when I was only 7, suddenly the view of my Grandma knowing anything about kids and parenting became more real.

She was always asking more from mom than what she could handle. She was always criticizing everything she did, making her feel unworthy of human affection, and making her feel completely insecure about everything… which is the reason why mom created a façade to get through her days.

Mom had a really bad upbringing, and I guess that if I wasn't the old soul mom says I am, I would blame Grandma Rony for all the years of emotional torture she made my mom go through. Although, don't get me wrong… I have issues with Veronica Townsend, but everything in its own time.

But I also know, that the things my grandma did, even though it doesn't make them right, made mom who she is right now: beautifully broken and perfectly imperfect… and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But of course, my mom didn't see things that way when she was only 23 years old, about to graduate from Berkeley, holding a positive pregnancy test on her hands.

When he got to that part, dad told me something like: _"I'll never know what went through her head during those hours before I went to her place, not knowing a thing about your existence…"_ but I do have a clear idea.

Maybe it's because I'm a girl, maybe it's because I know mom enough to read her mind, maybe it's because… I'm the mini-Taylor; I don't know. What I do know is that she got scared… scared of becoming the same cold hearted bitch her mom was once upon a time.

----------------------------

"_Hey…"_ dad said once he got into mom's room and saw her face dead serious, half shocked.

"_Hey Ryan…"_ my mom said, according to my dad's faithful story, smiling all the way through, shivering slightly from the nerves.

That, I believe. When Mom's nervous, she literally looks like she slept with a clothes hanger on her mouth. She can't stop smiling and her eyes get this glassy quality to them… I could seriously picture her.

He walked up to her and went to kiss her on the lips when she slightly moved her face and he ended up kissing her cheek. That's when he literally knew something was up.

"_Hmm, not that I'm not particularly in love with your cheeks…"_ he said while he placed another kiss in her face _"or your earlobes…"_ he said as he kept going up the frame of her face and bit down on her earlobe gently.

I know what you're thinking… TMI, right? I know, I was thinking the same too when I heard dad… explaining… that particular encounter, but I guess I got a reward in seeing him squirm; because as much as it was too much information for my ears and my imagination would probably be scarred for life, for dad it was twice as hard to be having a conversation that involved him kissing my mom to try and get laid, especially sharing this information with his teenage daughter of all people.

But hey, a deal's a deal and… did I mention dad squirming while he told me this? MasterCard!

"…_but I was really hoping to kiss those lips of yours if you don't mind…"_ he said trailing off as he leaned in to kiss her again to which mom replied putting one finger on his lips while she backed up the rest of her body.

"_Actually… I do."_ Mom said retreating her body from his reach and walking around the room, doing that thing where she paces uncontrollably with her hands joined together.

"_Oh really?"_ dad said turning around to face her, thinking she was just joking or having a meltdown because of graduation coming up. Really, sometimes I wonder how dad reads me, when he doesn't seem to have an idea about other women in general. _"Any reason in particular why you're so… edgy… right now?"_

"_I'm pregnant…"_ mom said in just one breath, making a grimace and narrowing her eyes as if she was waiting on an outburst from dad.

I find it funny… because as much as dad knows mom, mom knows dad better. And she knew he would have a freak out of some sort because of that revelation, I knew it too while he was telling me.

"_You're… pregnant…"_ he said taking a step closer to her, his voice barely audible as if it was a statement of numb disbelief. _"As in… with a baby…"_

"_Well, I certainly hope so__"_ mom said sarcastically throwing her hands in the air and turning away from dad as she continued to pace around.

"_How__? When? How? hmm…"_ dad said before he put his own finger in his mouth.

"_I have no idea, believe me. I'm been racking my brain all day trying to think of when this happened. Obviously it happened__ I few weeks ago… I just don't understand how… or when. I was the one who realized Summer might've been pregnant a long time ago, and I can't even know for sure when I got knocked up!"_ she said rambling and emphasizing everything with her hands the way she usually does.

"_Are you sure?"_ dad said looking at her, still the same numbness imprinted in his voice, but taking her hand guiding her to the couch to sit with him.

One of the few things dad told me during that night, was that the second he heard mom say "I'm pregnant", his blood turned cold and he started freaking out internally because of all the ways his future could end up being if he had a kid. But the second he took my mom's hand and guided her to the couch, the instant his skin made contact with hers after her confession… he realized he couldn't see a future where I wouldn't be there.

At first, I thought he was saying that just to make me feel better, and honestly, I wouldn't have held it against him if he had told me he yelled at mom or that he left the room or something because he was young. There were still a lot of things in his life to accomplish. But apparently he read me again when that thought crossed my mind because he gripped my hand and said to me, his gaze dead on my eyes: _"I mean that… don't for a second doubt that."_

Anyway, back to my story.

Mom sat there with him for a moment, but then she rose from the couch, went to the bathroom and came with the test in one hand and the box in the other one and she sat back on the couch with dad, a fair distance between them.

"_It says in the box that one line is negative, and two lines is positive… see?"_ she said gesturing the box. _"And there are two pretty pink lines in here… so I guess I am pregnant"_ she said, this time, motioning the test.

"_Aren't you forgetting something?"_ dad said tilting his head sideways a little to see her, and she accommodated herself in the couch so she was facing him now. She took the box out of his hands again and began reading, her brow slightly wrinkled a little in confusion.

"_No… I don't think so. I pretty much had to pee on the stick and it gave me the two lines so I guess I did everything__… right…"_ mom said trailing off after dad removed the box from her hands and forced her to look at him.

"_I wasn't talking about that…"_ dad said looking at her, moving his head in mom's direction.

"_What were you talking about?"_ mom said confused, but still not moving an inch…

"_You said you guessed _you_ were pregnant…"_ he said moving his face just a few inches close to hers.

"_Well, we can't be completely sure because this things can have a little margin of error, so I suppose I have to go to the doctors or something like that, but yeah, I _am_ pregnant…"_ mom said again, a little confused by dad's cryptic questions. She made sure she emphasized and nodded when she said the word 'am', as if trying to let dad know this wasn't some sort of trap, but still not moving an inch until his lips were just ghosting over her own.

"_No…"_ he looked her in the eyes _"_We're_ pregnant…"_ dad said now, 'we're' barely audible but not because he wasn't sure or because he was letting his fear taking over… but because he wanted to get through mom's head, that whatever happened, he was gonna be there…

He's not a man of many words, but the one's he does say… are worth gold.

"_I'm having your baby, Ryan__…"_ mom said, her lips just millimeters from dad's as she closed her eyes and smiled, just the faintest of smiles while she sighed… relaxing her shoulders for the first time since dad arrived. _"We're having a baby…"_

"_I like the sound of that…"_ dad said while he connected his forehead with hers and they both smiled… looking into each other's eyes.

If that's not love, then I don't know what love is.

---------------------------------------------------

Mom and dad decided to keep me just for themselves as long as it was possible; not because they were ashamed or scared particularly, but because there were a lot of things going on at that moment. Two months after their graduation, Aunt Summer and Uncle Seth were getting married, and mom had the vague idea that Aunt Summer wouldn't like being outshined by her best friend who was carrying Atwood's child out of wedlock. I guess I'm glad they decided not to tell because probably I wouldn't be here… Aunt Summer would've killed dad and mom would've died instantly and the whole wedding would've gone awry… so yeah, it was a good call.

But they knew… Mom and dad knew about me and it was enough.

"_I remember Seth and Summer's wedding day like it was yesterday…"_ dad said to me, his eyes looking at our hands and a sweet kind smile on his face.

I had no idea what he was gonna say… but I just knew that whatever it was will always stay ingrained in my brain, in my skin, in my way of breathing… whatever was gonna come out of his mouth was gonna change me completely, so I listened closely… and I memorized his exact words…

"… _not because of how Seth almost got cold feet, or because of your aunt, although she looked extremely beautiful. I remember it because, during the ceremony, I looked at your mom right next to Summer. I don't know __why I did it, but I just moved my head sideways… and she gave me a smile; and my exact thoughts were: _"I hope our kid gets her smile"_ and she nodded a little before turning her attention back to the ceremony, as if she'd just heard what I'd thought. And right then I knew… I was looking at my future"_

------------------------------------

Like I said before, we all have soundtracks in our lives. There are songs, either it is by their tune or because of their lyrics, that just stick with you because they define you. They become meaningful to you because there's a certain line, or just one little world, that manages to say what you can't in the moment. I guess that shows I'm a writer… I pay close attention to lyrics and words.

The White Stripes have a song that says something like this: _"… her stare is louder than your voice, because truth doesn't make a noise"_; and normally that's a line I love. Whenever there's truth in your life there's this sense of silence, you have nothing else to say because your actions or your state say things for you… so why bother being redundant?

But that line – truth doesn't make a noise – at least when it came about the truth about my mom being pregnant, wasn't true. The news of my existence… caused a lot of noise.

In some people, it was the sound of 'squee's' and 'yay's', at least that was the reaction from my aunt Summer and my Uncle Seth. From Grandma Kirsten it was the sound of tears, because she cried when she knew mom was pregnant with me. One of these days I'll have to ask why. For Sophie it was the sound of constant questions, asking where babies came from, and asking when 'Sethy' was gonna get one of his own. For Grandpa Sandy was the sound of advice… because he sat my mom and dad to tell them they could count on them whatever they needed.

For other's… there was the sound of criticism, insecurity, and maybe a hint of anger; feelings that came much more deeper once my dad announced that they were getting married too.

Who was that someone? Who was the second-guesser? Do you really have to ask?

Yes… my wonderful Grandma Rony wasn't exactly thrilled to know she was gonna have a grandchild… and that her daughter was marrying – even after all these years – the boy from Chino.

--------------------------------------------------------

Mom has always been one of those people who love to learn new stuff. Every time she knows about a cooking class, even though the woman can only cook desserts, or when she knows about knitting classes, or… basically anything; she always tries to sign herself up. She says that it was in her valedictorian speech: we should learn as long as we may live, and I guess she took it seriously.

She had this whole plan to keep studying after college. She was gonna study social sciences, anything and everything about humanistic, more writing, more languages… They had this whole thing set up… dad and her; about going to Stanford maybe and then move back to Berkeley and see what the unpredictable side of life had in store for them.

And apparently what was in store was me, because once I came to the picture… going to Stanford was not an option.

I don't really know why. I like to think it's because they both realized they couldn't live like two normal college kids anymore, having themselves a kid to take care of; because balancing both their schedules and a baby all on their own in Stanford would be quite difficult… or maybe because now that they were getting married, they wanted Berkeley to be their home.

Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't been at the end of the staircase the night dad left… and other times I wonder what would've happened if I had been conceived a couple of years later; because like I said, they had this whole thing planned; which is weird because dad's not a planner and for the expression on his face while telling me all the things they were going to do, I realized that plan wasn't just mom's idea… it was theirs.

But I also know, mainly because dad told me, that neither of them regrets the time where I was born, or the circumstances I was born in… It was just supposed to happen like that, and there's a reduced set of options when it comes to things written in the stars.

I wish Grandma Rony would've seen it that way.

I don't know exactly what was said, or what happened that night when they went to Newport to see my grandma and they told her they were a pregnant-engaged couple now. Dad wouldn't go into detail, and I thank him for it. Dad's not my Grandma's biggest fan and Grandma's not dad's fan either… I don't see that changing; but dad knows, and I find it extremely honorable on his part, that for better or for worse, that's my Grandmother, and I owe her respect… and sometimes even love. So he didn't tell me what she yelled, or how she told mom that she was just "settling" with an undergraduate degree, or how she told mom she would never have a respectable job for carrying the child of a delinquent, or how mom stood up for dad telling my grandma that they were gonna be better parents than she ever was, or how dad remained quiet his entire time inside the house but never let go of mom's hand literally all night… (That, Grandma Rony told me herself a few weeks back. I guess you expect me to hate her… but curiously I don't. She's really changed now and I'm not just saying it.)

What dad did tell me though, was what Grandma Rony told him on the way out of the house…

"_You could've gone to Stanford!"_ She said her voice quite loud while mom stormed off to the car and shut the door as she got in.

"_But she doesn't want to… things have changed now!"_ dad practically growled at her turning around, not going into the car immediately. He got sick of Grandma diminishing mom's greatness… that, I know on my own without anyone having to tell me.

"_The only reason things have changed now it's because of you"_ grandma said sizing dad up, a little surprised of his sudden outburst.

"_You mean that because of me she's __happier now than she was ever around your house? That because of me; we're having a baby that we're really happy about, and in spite of all my reservations about you, she still wanted to come down here and share the news with you, just to have you insult her?"_ dad said, his blue eyes on my grandma's and he forced her to swallow hard.

"_Things have changed now because you're holding her back. If she knew she had greatness in her, she would've gone to Stanford like she wanted to, with, or without you…"_ my Grandma said, her voice a little dark but steady, forcing dad to take in her words.

"_I'm not holding her back…"_ dad said a little taken aback by my grandma's words…

"_Love isn't everything… someday you'll see it."_ Grandma said and she turned her back to the door.

It didn't matter how much she'd made my dad think about mom's true potential or anything like that… he wasn't going to let Grandma win a battle like that…

So he said: _"Someday… we'll prove you wrong…"_ and he turned back on his heels, got to the car… and drove off.

----------------------------------------

At that point of the story, dad's eyes had glazed over. I guess I'd never seen dad so 'not there' like at that moment. Not even the night he left the house he'd looked so sad and yet mad at himself for whatever it was that was running through his head.

It scared me.

It scared me because dad never zones out on me… usually I'm the one who dips out of reality.

And he scared me even more when he said; I don't even think he was talking to me as more of talking to himself: _"And until Prague… she'd been wrong… Until Prague… we'd proven her wrong"_


	5. AN's AGAIN

**Author's Note: **

_Hey Everyone! It's me… the slow updater o__f this story. (lol) So, again, it's been two months since I've updated this and I guess you all wanna kill me for uploading this AN's instead of the chapter, but I think this is something you all deserve to know. _

_I was going through every single one of the reviews I've gotten for this story last night and first of all, I wanna say a thousand million thank you's! It means absolutely everything to me to have you guys review _this particular_ story._

_Now, I don't want you to think I've forgotten this story because I don't update it as often as my main story, because I could never EVER forget about this one. I guess it seems like I do forget it and when I update it might seem like a long ramble that doesn't tell you what you wanna know (Raise your hands every single one of you who wants to read about Prague!), but I know where I'm going with this story. I normally start a story with its ending in mind and _this_ most definitely is not the exception to the rule. Of all the stories, this one's __**most definitely not**__ the exception. _

_I'm slower to update this because sometimes Lillian's mindset is a little fuzzy and it needs a little coherence, and for the last three months (even when I wrote last chapter), Lillian's mindset has been a complete shade of gray that barely distinguishes right from wrong, because a lot of events twisting her life… _

_Lillian is based on me. _

_Her whole personality at least. The RT I made up… sorta (lol). I've changed a lot of details to fit what I'm trying to be cathartic about, but this story, it's based on me. So, I guess it's no wonder why I'm taking my time with it, because with this story in particular, I NEED the whole world to understand what's going through Lillian's head. So I apologize if at any part of the story it has seemed like its dragging on or that is a never-ending scrolling down that says nothing much of what you want to read or that you can't understand what "she's" trying to say… most likely it was because "she's" just as confused as you are. _

_Okay, (sigh) so Thank you once more for reading this loooong AN's for those of you who stayed this far (lol) now's the time for the news you'd been wanting to hear._

_(wait for it, wait for it)_

_I **AM** TELLING YOU WHAT HAPPENED IN PRAGUE **ON NEXT CHAPTER!**_

_It's already 80 percent written, and if I finish it soon, with uni and all, and if Lesley has the time to beta it, I should be uploading before the end of the week, or next week tops. _

_Again, thanks for taking the time to read this…_

_Love you all,_

_Shar_

_xoxoxox _


	6. Part V

**Author's Note: **_Hey yo! (I know in my main language - spanish- it means "hey me!" but wth, right? lol) So, as promised... here it is. As you all probably know because of my constant complaining about my life, past few days haven't been the best I've had, but as someone very wise and who I admire/love/adore/insert-here-all-the-worshipping-words-in-the-english-language told me once, my best work happens in moments of emotional distress and this truly came from my heart, both the parts based in me and the parts that have nothing to do with me. So before leaving you all to read, a few pointers to a few of you who reviewed the AN's I uploaded (which btw, I had to re-upload so you could review this). **Kris:**_ property of mine, I'm sorry I got your hopes up with the AN's, but this one's for you so you won't hate your master **_Rach:_** I'm sorry for getting you mad, hopefully this will make you happier or... you could be the Lillian once you're done with this (lol) **_Angel:_** Thank you for understanding and waiting patiently for my updates... you're one of my fav reviewers. **_Indira: _**Also thank you for being so supportive, I love your feedback. **_Gilbs:_** you didn't review honey but you were with me while I wrote this, and you ARE the person who sees the whole package, thank you for that. Love ya. **_Sandra:_** you have no idea how much that review meant, especially right now, and in this story... it's nice to have you back amongst us _and last but not least** My Eas **_(it sounds cute doesn't it... my Eas instead of my Ace, lol)**_: _**I appreciate your comments and I love you for them... BUT I _know_ you judge me!! lmao! I still love you though lol.

_Boy is this AN's long! It could be a story on it's own!_

_Without further a due... Prague. _

_XOXOXOXOXOX_

"**Show Me What True Love Is"**

**Part V**

One of the last things I had to do for high school was an essay on something you thought you had to change about yourself before you started college. I've never considered myself the perfect student, the perfect daughter, the perfect girl, the perfect human being; I've never considered myself much of anything more than someone who's here to fulfill a purpose and… that's it. So I suppose by now you've guessed that my list of flaws I had to change was pretty big. Don't get me wrong, I know I have a set of virtues lying somewhere in the package, but I don't know that because I've seen them precisely, they're kind of still a hidden treasure for me… I know it because every once in a while I decide to trust someone over trusting what I know, it's my biggest flaw: My insecurity.

Most of our moves, our lives, or our ways of thinking are driven by insecurity. At least mine anyway, and that's something I've always hated about my personality. I've always aimed to be someone independent and poised, and level-headed; and I've simply hated the natural feeling of second-guessing everything I do, of not being able to think outside the box and be objective about _my own_ path or my life and having to depend on someone else to tell me how things are in order to believe in myself… And even when, on rare occasions, someone might come and think of the most beautiful set of words to compliment something I've made, there's always the inner struggle that says "It's not good enough… _you're_ not good enough".

I guess that's just something I inherited from my mom, or so I thought.

XOXOXOX

It wasn't long after the whole Grandma Ronny/dad/mom showdown back in the infamous Orange County that my parents got married. September 14, 2011. Yep, I'm a February girl so I think that would make mom four months pregnant when she got dressed in a simple knee-long white see-through dress, and walked the "aisle" in the direction to the sunset melting with the blue of the ocean back in the distance, to meet the humble boy of Chino who'd swept her off her feet. Why on Earth did they have a wedding on the beach? Don't ask me. I just have the pictures to back it up and it's not often I say this, but I wish I had been there; (technically I was there… but you get the point).

It seemed so intimate, and… happy. There weren't many people at the beach; just Grandma Kirsten, Grandpa Sandy, Aunt Summer, Uncle Seth, Julie and Frank. I guess they didn't want to make a big deal about the wedding because my dad has never been one for being on the spot, much like me, and well, because he also knew that given the only blood family my mom had, had been so… opinionated about well, me… a big wedding would just remind my mom how, in between the masses of people, her mom was missing… again.

Dad has really perceptive moments I've come to realize, and I thank him for it because I can see the pictures again and again and… mom's just so… happy, something she hardly was when I was 16.

There's this particular pair of pictures of mom and dad's wedding I have framed up in my room in the Berkeley house.

Each of the two represents something for me… like everything they do.

In the first one, you can see my dad standing just in the center of the picture… one side of his shirt loosely tucked inside his pants while the other isn't, the collar button of his shirt open and his tie just all over the place while he looks down into his arms where he's holding my mom horizontally in a princess fashion. The immediate idea you get from that memory trapped in the celluloid is that my dad was spinning her around slowly and carefully, because the vision of my mom is just pure trust: her whole body arched in my dad's arms, her arms stretched to either side as if she was flying and her neck's all thrown back watching the sky while the waves on the ends of her dress move in the same direction of her hair. You can still see glimpses of her profile and there's this big smile and innocence and… fun on her features that are impossible not to notice… and then you see my dad's smile too and you're not at all surprised when you realize his eyes are looking down to her face.

Just like they are right now by the way.

It's a really wonderful picture that makes me remember all the why's while answering them all the same… why were they together, why they seemed so happy, why they seemed so simple… and it doesn't matter how many questions I ask, when I see that picture every single one of them has the same answer: perfect combination.

They were this wonderful miracle of mixing two different elements, opposite elements like water and oil, and make them work as if life was their beautiful dance; as if they were soaring in their blissful own little world.

The other picture is one where my Dad's hugging my mom, her back to his chest and his hands wrapped around her barely noticeable stomach. Seriously, my mom… you wouldn't have noticed she was pregnant unless you really knew her… and basically I knew she was pregnant because she's been slim all her life and well… I know her. In the picture, dad's head's on her right shoulder and his forehead's just on my mom's temple as if he was about to kiss her cheek. He has his eyes closed and a vague smile on his lips, as if she was more a scent he was trying to breathe in than a tangible presence wrapped within his arms; and I like to think his expression's the consequence of him still not being able to believe he was living this; that this was his life. And as for mom… she's also not looking at the camera because her whole attention's focused on my dad's hands touching her stomach and probably making it real that they weren't just the two of them and that they'd never be just the two of them from now on… it was always gonna be Taylor, Ryan and Lillian Atwood… and my mom's face, looking down with a vague smile just like dad's, shows just… tranquility… perfect peace.

I'm not gonna waste more time describing that picture because you either have to see it or imagine it to understand its full beauty… If I have to pick a favorite out of just those two… it would be this one, not only because I'm a huge part of the underlying subject they're talking wordlessly about, with the sky fading from orange to purple, from purple to black with just one star as guidance in the background… not only because my presence in that picture just makes me fill my void and think I was actually there…

In this picture, so special and so… magical…There are no why's… its just one big, undeniable glow of happiness called "because".

XOXOX

The thing about insecurity is that it never really goes away. If it has hit you once, it will probably always be there. Whether you're successful, with more money than you ever hoped to get, or more beautiful than anyone else around you... there's always gonna be that sentiment of feeling like everything you've got it's not as good as you thought it would be. There's always gonna be that void eating you alive, reminding you at every instant that you're never gonna be the best… that it's never gonna be enough.

But I guess the factor of it always being there is joined with something else too, something more… dramatic, karmic, and destructive we're never sure of how to shake…

That it is when you're happy, when insecurity strikes with full force.

XOXOXO

Another song ended, and another song began playing, and my dad and I were still dancing at the Christmukkah party two years ago. I'd already lost count of the songs that had gone away leaving just a sweet taste with each note before losing themselves in the back of my mind.

I'd already lost track of the time we had on the dance floor, but it's safe to say it was at least half an hour or so. I don't know how I got dad to dance with me that long, but it seemed like he was wrapped in the story as much as I was wrapped in him, and that was something that spoke volumes about how much he loved my mom… still. And the more I looked at his face and his lips moving telling the story of his life, the more I wondered what it was… what it was that had made them separate, because this seemed to be just as much an epic story as the Battle of Troy ever was, and damn it, I still wasn't seeing how Prague or the letter I'd found was connected to this paradise he seemed to be describing.

Up until the part where he took a deep breath and he said: _"I love my job… and your mom also loves hers". _

Huh?

It completely caught me off guard because one moment he was talking about the wedding and how happy he was and then he mentioned something I know they both love; after all that was the thing that had them pulling through during all those years they were apart; but that at the same time, had nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Or so I thought.

XOXOXO

What starts well, ends well. In theory that's how life's supposed to go. If you work hard from the start when you're trying to get something, technically, the moment you finally have it in your hands, everything should go well right? It's this unconscious bargaining deal we have with the Fates that's taught to us since the moment we start using our brain. If you're a good boy or girl, Santa gives you presents; if not… you only get coal in your stocking. It's basic common sense…

But sometimes when we rely on what we think we know, we forget life's not about common sense, that plans fall apart, that no matter how big or strong, rocks break, that porcelain cracks and even when you glue it back together, you can still see the scars.

That's why insecurity seems so safe… because it's the only thing you can trust.

XOXOXOX

The months after my parent's wedding were months of happiness; they were married, living in a big house my grandparents had bought for them as a wedding gift here in Berkeley, with my nursery all fixed up already, partially because of mom's neurosis and excitement about getting everything ready for my arrival and partially because that was Aunt Summer and Uncle Seth's gift to the newly weds. Life was good and everything was going according to plan.

Except professionally.

I'd never understood how… important, the professional life of someone can become. I'd always thought that there were more meaningful things out there to accomplish or that if you had love, health and family, then everything would work out on its own; but like I said, the second my dad started telling _this_ side of the story, I began getting the picture that it wasn't just that simple.

They aren't simple.

There's always something inside of us that wants for us to feel productive, that we're making a difference, not only in someone else's life just by the act of being there, but that your mind, your effort, the years and the addiction of learning you have are worth something; that they aren't just quirks or flaws you learned how to use to your advantage; and when three months had passed and my dad didn't have a job yet, I guess he got the clear idea that this… "Playing house", for the lack of a better term, wasn't gonna be that easy.

I know my dad. I can read him; and I can see in him stuff that no one other than my mom sees, and sometimes not even her; and therefore, I guess I've walked more miles in his shoes than I ever should.

But what can I say? It's an Atwood thing.

He saw himself as what he actually was right then: The head of a household with a baby on the way, a baby less than two months away as a matter or fact. A thousand million thoughts must've run my dad's head, a few of them I guess flashbacking how it was living on a family where your dad couldn't generate enough economically.

Personally, there's no way in the world I could ever compare my dad to Frank. Not that I don't care about my real grandfather, don't get me wrong, but dad's just _not_ what Frank was and is never gonna be what he was. But just as my mom feared becoming grandma Ronny when she knew about me, it was natural I guess for my dad to think Frank was his future; because Frank didn't start being a bad guy. It all started when he couldn't get a decent job, Dawn got into gambling to pay debts which turned into more debts and he ended up robbing a liquor store.

It sounds so dramatic, I know, because my dad would _never_ do that, but…he'd lived most of his life surviving precisely whenever things seemed to be going according to plan and they turned out too good to be true.

Insecurity 101.

He thought this, my mom, me… our family, would go wrong because of him. He forgot how far he'd gone up until that point in his life, and he thought he'd never be enough or what we deserved of him, and he got that really ingrained inside his head…

It didn't matter for him that he'd gotten a job not long before I was born, a great job doing that he loved so much… he just focused on the fact that life was a time bomb, and that somewhere down the line it was all gonna go off.

And after I was born he just focused on how many days, how many good job opportunities of doing what she loves most here in this world my mom had to pass by because she had me now.

That's the thing about insecurity, that whenever you start doubting yourself, it doesn't matter what happens… you're always gonna see flaws where there are none.

XOXOXOX

My mom's nuts! No new information there right?

I'm not gonna waste much of my time describing what I've already rambled here inside my head, which are substantial reasons I've used to back my theory that mom's just a big five year old high on sugar and caffeine all at once. Instead, I'm just gonna ramble on about a different thing: her extremely freaky need to be occupied by something.

If you lock my mom inside a room with nothing else than her own body inside the tiny place, by the time you get her out, she will most likely have a very detailed list on her brain of the ways she'd thought of how she could get out of there AND a list of the things she has to do for the next two weeks or so. That's just who she is.

She loves to organize things, she loves to read, she loves to learn, she loves to write… and as far as I know, one of her dreams was to be a newspaper editor. I don't know why, since as far as I know she has what it takes and more to give Nicholas Sparks a run for his money, but she likes to edit stuff. She basically likes anything and everything that has to do with the publishing industry, but we all know it's not a piece of cake to get there... and I guess that's why she wanted to learn everything there was to know about that world… in Stanford…

There are a lot of things about my life I wonder about. I wonder if I hadn't been on the top of the staircase when I was eight, if my parents hadn't split, I wonder if I'd been born a year or two later if things would've been different, and I wonder if at some point, someone… either my mom or my dad felt I was part of the reason for this whole mess. I'm not going down a self-pity lane or anything because I'm sure that if I ask them they're gonna tell me to stop thinking nonsense and they'd tell me up until my ears bleed how much they love me, because I know they do… but I wonder… I'm insecure so I wonder.

Anyway, me spacing out for a sec. Going back to my mom's need to be occupied and to be learning a lot, I guess I expected for her to be blaming me or something for being born because I changed her life plans… but she wasn't, she wasn't at all stressed for not getting a job. Yes, she wanted a job doing what she loved, but she loved me more… and she was happy just tutoring Sophie and Nathan in French and her school friends too for all the time I was a baby… she was happy with that because she wanted a family…

She'd always wanted us.

But once you start doubting, things change… And my dad knows how much potential my mom has and instead of seeing my mom happy at home doing what she loves most in the world – loving him - he saw her "settling" for him and a voice in his head kept telling him he was holding her back…

A voice that sounded tremendously like Grandma Ronny.

XOXOXOXO

A lot of times in my life I've wondered the same old pounding sentence: "Love isn't everything". I started questioning that way before I knew Grandma Ronny had said that to my dad on the way out of Newport, and… I never really had a straight answer to that one. Love can give you everything you need spiritually speaking… yes, but it's not like you're gonna open up your fridge and you're gonna "eat" love right? On the other hand, if you're married to someone and you love that person, you're gonna do everything in your power to make that person happy in every aspect of their life. Physically, economically, spiritually, emotionally… you're gonna strive and fight your life out to make that person happy because you _love that person_. So in that sense… is love not everything? And if it is, how far would you go to make that person happy?

My parents… especially my dad, where still dancing on the shades of gray on that one as well.

XOXOXOX

Insecure people work like time bombs. Let's use me as a hypothesis. You can tell me something today… like for instance, "Lillian, I think that shirt sucks", and I most likely, won't think about that right there in the second you mention it, and if I do, I'll probably try to seem tough and tell you I don't care what you think, and if you catch me on a really bad mood I might even tell you with a classical "Lillian" smile that it's _you_ that has no clothing taste whatsoever, (that's the bitchy Townsend in me). Days can go by without me thinking about the way you criticized me, but one thing I can assure you is that the moment I see the shirt again… I'll wonder if it's a smart move of me to put the shirt on, and I'll get all delusional about how fat I look in it, how it doesn't match my skin tone and all that girly crap.

For things like what I just mentioned, I always thought my insecurity was product of my mom's genes, plus, it made more sense to me because of what she'd been through and everything… but once my dad told me all of this, I realized it wasn't at all because of mom.

It's an Atwood thing.

Point is, you never know when all your bottled up neurosis and "reasonable" fears are gonna pop up. It's a time bomb without a clock waiting to explode in your face the moment and under the circumstances you least expect. It's just how it is.

And in my dad's case, it lasted _years_ inactive. I guess he thought about it every once in a while, possibly on times where I was taking a nap and my mom would grab a magazine and complain out loud at how badly expressed most of the articles were, or how she would write for hours on end and read to me stuff when I was wide awake at 3 am in the morning… or when Ethan came to live with us and found my mom's collection of short stories and saw the nostalgic smile on her face when she said she hadn't ever been published… or when Ethan taught me how to read when I was five using mom's scrapbooks of articles concerning Berkeley… Those were little moments that joined together over the years made my dad's fear of holding my mom back pack heat. Honestly I can't see how my dad felt he wasn't good enough because he's one of the smartest men I've ever known and I'm not just saying it because I'm biased, but what surprised me the most was how my mom hadn't noticed…

Seven years the insecurity was there just lying underneath the surface… the first seven years of Lillian Veronica Atwood's life, and it never once showed on my dad's face. Not once.

But insecurity always explodes. It's like bottling up your feelings… it always comes to the surface begging to get one fresh breath…

And my dad's insecurity exploded in Prague.

XOXOXOX

I take a big sharp breath and I realize I'm sitting at one of the tables in the room. No idea how I got here… as per usual. Anyways, I have more important things to think about right now than how the hell I came to sit right beside my Aunt Summer.

I'm not sure of how to do this… this… overanalyze a problem in my parent's life that honestly is none of my business. There are things about my parent's life I don't know and that I don't even _deserve _to know just by the mere fact of being their daughter. Sons and daughters aren't supposed to know _everything_ about their parents… I like that theory… and I'm not sure I know how to analyze this… I just don't know…

It's… Prague… and it breaks my heart.

"_Come on Atwood! Don't let the Czech Republic kick your ass!"_ it's just then… then when I realize I rambled it all out loud and I lift up my head to watch Aunt Summer winking at me and running a soothing arm around my shoulders.

XOXOXOX

So… here it is. I'm just gonna tell it like my dad told it to me… as if he was just the narrator of a horror movie he wished he hadn't seen and worse, he hadn't been a part of. 'Cause honestly, I can't really stand the thought of what happened here… I became aware of this… two years ago, and it still chokes my throat…

My dad had just gotten a partnership in the firm. That much I can remember because I remember asking him what "partnership" meant. "A united front", I think he answered, and I replied "kind of like Grandma Kirsten and Grandpa Sandy… or like you and mom".

My dad had decided to take my mom on vacation for a couple of weeks to anywhere in the world she'd like to see, and for a reason I still don't understand she picked the Czech Republic. If it was me who'd had to pick a place in the world it would probably be Scotland… "they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!" that film with Mel Gibson and the crazy paint on his face has always intrigued me about that country, or maybe Canada… because good things (like Celine Dion… hey don't judge me) come from of there. But that's me… my mom's more eccentric.

The thing is they got there… and it was really great the first week or so I guess… they were away, my dad wasn't thinking about anything… up until he found the letter from Angelo.

XOXOXOX

My mom had gone shopping for something, my dad doesn't remember what, not even today, and if you ask my mom… she doesn't remember either. All she remembers is how, very much in the classical movie scene kind of way, she got into the hotel room, she turned the lights on and she found my dad brooding in the dark.

"_Oh, Ryan! I thought you were asleep"_ my mom had said in a tone that was a little chirpy but her face immediately turned into a frown. I guess it was then when she realized that whatever he was thinking had had a long time inside the vault to eat away at him. _"What's wrong?"_

My dad stayed mute for a while longer until she came to sit in front of him with her body leaning towards him, trying to seek out his eyes which he didn't dare to show. For my mom, whenever you can't meet her gaze, she starts freaking out, and I guess it's because she knows that nothing good can come out of that reaction… especially when your husband languidly and carefully throws an envelope at you containing a letter of someone admitting they had the hugest crush on you.

She had sat back a little at the letter, not really knowing if she should focus on how the paper wavered until it fell completely on her lap or on the tired and most of all hurt tone in his voice as he said _"why didn't you tell me?"_

And then she reacted.

"_Okay Ryan, listen to me. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Angelo's letter, but I just didn't think it was that important. He was just someone I knew __in the six months I was in France and…"_

"_Just why didn't you tell me?"_ he asked again, this time having stood up and turned his back on her while he walked to the other side of the dimly lit hotel room.

"…_we were never anything. He was just an old friend, who knows I'm married and that I have a family…"_ she continued like he hadn't said a thing, which I guess drove him to become more frustrated.

"_Taylor!"_ he lifted up his head and shot her a brief look that forced her to take a step back. He realized he was being rude to her… and he had just sighed. Dad does that every time he's mad and he lets his emotions get the best of him, which nowadays happens rather rarely. He asked in a more soothing tone _"I get it… I'm not asking about that…"_

It was my mom's turn to sigh now and she smiled a little as she put a hand on her chest. I guess she thought the worst was over… and to be honest while I was hearing this I wished for it to be over as well. She just comically stated something like _"Good, 'cause after five years of being your girlfriend and seven years of being your wife, I thought you were having a jealousy fit…"_

"_Of course not…"_ he vaguely mumbled.

Silence filled the room for a little while… the light air of comedy moving around them before the bad storm came. I guess they both knew something was gonna change them forever… hell, even I knew.

But he broke the silence and headed back to business.

"_I meant why you didn't tell me about the job here"_ he rested his hands on the kitchenette counter.

"_I was going to…"_ she said but was cut off by my dad's words… words that changed them… us… Ethan and me all the way back here.

"_I want you to take it"_

"_No…"_ she said without hesitation. And again, I wish it would've ended there… hell, from the look on my dad's face… he wished it too.

"_Taylor…"_ he continued. _"You can't tell me you didn't think about taking the job. It's something you…"_

"_Of course I thought about it, I'd be crazy not to think about it, although I am a little crazy sometimes, but it's here in Prague… and…"_ she said resolutely but when you have insecurities… you see fluctuations of voice where there are none and he thought she doubted too.

"_I'm there…"_ and finally… she understood what this all was.

I've always loved how mom reacts fast in moments that need fast actions… and she just went to my dad and she grabbed his hands, even though he was reluctant at first and forced him to look at her.

"_No Ryan… _we're_ there remember? It's "we're"…not "I'm" or "you're"… it's "we're"…"_

I guess that touched a nerve on dad's end… because he knew what my mom was meaning… I just wish… another sigh escapes my mouth and the world stops spinning… like I guess it did for him right there and then.

"_I can't ask you to give__ up this opportunity, to stop doing something you love for me…"_ he said matter-of-factly, letting go of mom's hands, walking again to the other side of the room.

And that's when mom snapped.

"_From where is this coming from? __And who said you asked me to stop doing something I love?"_ she said fairly loud for him to turn around _"Ryan, look at me!"_

"_It's been me okay! It's been me all this time! I asked you to __stay; I stopped us from going to Stanford! I've held you back, and that's why you haven't had decent job despite having such a wonderful mind like yours. It's been… me"_ he only stopped when mom's face grew in between insulted and just plain disappointed.

"_It's been you…? You think I haven't had a job in seven years__, Ryan because I decided to marry you? Are you even listening to what you're saying?"_ My mom was mad… and I'm pretty sure her blood was boiling up just like mine was at this point of the story.

But instead, her questions landed in the silence, and she kept going.

"_For the first time in… ever, you're the one having an unreasonable breakdown and I'm the one who has no clue of what's happening. I don't know if this is some… really delayed reaction to what my mom told us before Lillian was born, but has it ever occurred to you that I haven't _wanted_ a job because I love my family?"_

"_Exactly!"_ he snarled back. _"I don't want you to sacrifice what you love doing for me! So I want you to _take_ the job here"_

"_I'm not sacrificing anything, don't you get that I want…"_ she sighed and breathed in so her tone could pick up more force. "_You're seriously suggesting for me to get a job here…?!"_ her tone became even more desperate and when she vaguely saw him nod she joined her hands together and said _"Ok… have you forgotten we have two kids waiting at home that are gonna ask you where their mother is?"_

When there was nothing else other than muffled silence, she kept going.

"_Have you forgotten how much it is I love you?"_ still, he didn't even say a word.

"_Because I do__, I always have, and there's no way in the world that you would hold me back or that you wouldn't be enough for me. And I don't know if you have noticed… but you're basically saying I settled for you, that we have what we have because of a default, that Ethan and Lilly are just…"_ and she stopped to get some air while she cleaned incessant tears falling by then.

And she still met silence.

"_I can't believe you're asking me to leave you…"_ and finally… her words hit home and he dared to meet her gaze, but by the time he did it… she'd already mumbled something like _"Fine… I'm going home"_ and had gone out the door…

All because of a damn time bomb called, insecurity.

XOXOXO

The music was still playing; a lot of people were around us fluttering as butterflies battering their wings to celebrate their freedom while two bodies stood still in the middle of the dance floor; a sixteen year old girl with both her arms languidly hanging from her shoulders on either side of her body while her blue eyes shimmered with the watery quality that had overcome their natural peaceful blue, which might as well been scarlet red for the fury and rage revealed to her beholder, a man who's face only showed a furrowed brow that only produced frustration because of the how unreadable the expression was.

Boy it feels weird to write about yourself in the third person! But I wanted to at least give you an idea of what it felt like to be on the outside looking in… of how it was to hear the… unbelievable-ness of it all. I swear I could just stare right into my dad's face and for the first time the message his face gave me was silence.

And it pissed me off royally.

"_So… let me get this straight…"_ I think I mumbled at some point joining my hands together really slowly. _"You… um… you…"_

I couldn't even form a coherent thought.

"_I don't expect you to understand it"_ was all he said, his arm moving less than an inch that I interpreted as him trying to touch me, but just as slightly, I didn't let him. I was so hurt; you have no idea how much. I was mad, I was frustrated… all in one day I'd discovered the letter that had got me all haywire inside, so much I vaguely remembered I'd hurt my mom… and now this? _I sure as hell needed to get this!_

"_So what happened after that?"_ I said furrowing _my_ brow, my voice low, looking for one last chance to understand the Prague situation. To be honest right then I think I wasn't even willing to try to understand it, now I do. I don't approve of it, but I do get it… _"As far as I can remember you came home together…"_

"_I caught your mom at the airport and we got back home… but it wasn't the same after that. __There was always this big 'I'm not good enough'/'you want me to leave' elephant in the room and we stopped talking. And it all went downhill from there"_

I'm not stupid. I know that when you stop communicating with someone sooner than you'd expect you end up either, not caring or caring too much it makes it impossible to address the issue.

And I knew that in their case, it was the latter. But I know that now, back then? Different story.

"_So… you __give me all this crap about sacrifice…"_ my voice began sounding as mad as I was.

"_Lilly…"_

"_But what you did is hardly a sacrifice… that was being scared__, somehow dressed up as an 'I love you'!"_ I never once stopped looking at him.

"_It was a sacrifice Lilly…it's just… complicated"_ he stated, trying to get closer to me but I stepped back, a few number of people noticing me.

"_You were sacrificing me!"_ By that point, I was talking fairly loudly for those surrounding me and a few of them stopped dancing. _"That was your sacrifice! That was your easy way out!"_

"_Lillian!"_ his tone never picked up the volume, unlike mine, but it did pick up its firmness.

"_The real sacrifice there would've been to overcome your shit and fight for her! For us! But for 8 years you haven't given a damn!"_ (FYI, if I use words like "shit" or "fuck", you know I'm not in a good mood.)

I'm not proud of the way I acted at that christmukkah party, I will never be proud of that, because that's not me. I wish sometimes I could go back and handle things differently or maybe at least give my brain time and… clarity to understand everything right then, but pasts can't be rewritten and it doesn't matter how much I try, I can't change it.

I didn't see right then that my mom got a job, even in between their estrangement, not because she wanted to be more away from him, but because she hoped to show him she could do both. That love was indeed everything like they'd always thought. And I couldn't see that my dad only wanted her to have the greatness she could have, even if it was without him…

So in ways they were sacrificing something… it wasn't the right way, or I don't necessarily have to support it, but I do understand it and I guess it pained my dad more than I'll ever imagine when I got like that that night…

It pains me.

"_Hey!"_ it was only then when he decided to make a stop to my immaturity by raising his voice, and now the attention of the whole room was on us.

"_No!"_ I shouted even more than him, and I only stopped momentarily what I was gonna say because I felt my mom rushing towards me.

"_What's going on!?"_ she asked confused while she tried to grab me and I moved away.

"_You haven't cared about how this back and forth affects me, or how you leaving me did? FINE!"_ The tears were flowing down my face and I saw my mom's shocked face when she heard me scream like that… months later, she told me it was because I reminded her ridiculously of my dad when he was seventeen. _"Well, I'm the one who's leaving now and then you can tell me what it feels like!"_

I just stormed off immersed in my rage and my thoughts, my fists closed off so hard my nails were digging into my skin and I'm pretty sure they were about to draw blood. I didn't mean to yell all of that, hell… I don't even know why I did it. I guess… it's just like I said, insecurity works like a time bomb… and just hearing my dad tell me that basically he'd left because of me or worse, that they'd split because of me (I know that's _not_ what he said _now_ but that's how I viewed it), made me feel like it was all my fault… just like being at the end of the staircase the night he left.

It's insecurity 101.

And as I ran off and got inside my mom's car in my high heels to run back to the empty shell I'd called my home… I dimly remembered why it was I'd asked about Prague in the first place…

It was because my mom and dad still loved each other…


	7. Part VI

**Author's Note: **_Raise your hand all those of you who are having a WTF? moment right now? lol. I know! It was three months this time but you know what the drill with this story is. I just hope you like it because I heart this story with all I have! Seriously. I wish I could say I would update more frequently but, I'm not sure. However, I AM updating "This broken Road" people. I am in the process of writing one of the hardest chapters I've ever ever written lol. So that's why it's taking me a while, but hopefully it WILL be up by the end of the week or next week tops. _

_Also, I'm in finals... so yeah. lol. Another reason why I haven't had a lot of time to write properly. Now, sit back, and read the beauty of Ryan and Taylor's daughter... _

_Ps. I'm going unbeta'd and due to the long-ness-ity of this chapter, you're bound to find mistakes... probably tons of them so watch out for your eyes lol. _

_Off you go!_

* * *

**Show Me What True Love Is**

**Part VI**

Five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally, Acceptance. It's said that those five stages are not only the process we go through when we lose someone we cared about, something we held dear in our hearts… but that that's the process we endure when things simply don't turn out the way we want them to. We can go through those five stages in the space of a minute, just as much as they can last for years… years of blissful torture that we call moving on.

But it doesn't matter how much time passes, how dark the hour of depression is… you always know you're just about to see the sunlight breaking into your life because you'll finally accept things.

If you're not me, that is.

I've never been one for being mature when things don't go like I've pictured them. I know; I know… I'm an eighteen year old baby because I never grew up believing life was unfair. I'm still a child in the sense that I tend to idealize and build perspectives… and for me (and most people in the world) there are no five stages of grief or five stages of "dealing" as Ethan likes to say… simply because…

I _don't_ deal.

For me there's only denial (best known as bottling up), and if I ever get past that… I get stuck in depression, (some Taylor Townsend daughter I turned out to be right? My mom? Depressed? NEVER).

And yet, while I was driving the car two years ago, countless of thoughts and shattered ideals still tingling in my ears as they broke audibly; the least bit of my rational mind praying to God that I wouldn't crash because of the countless of tears that kept roaming my cheeks like Niagara Falls; I wasn't in denial… and I wasn't depressed…

I was _angry_. I _am_ Ryan Atwood's daughter after all.

* * *

My mom says I drive like a maniac. She says its dad's fault.

After a lot of begging and going behind my mom's back, dad taught me to drive since I was fourteen. As much as I don't speak _Car and Driver_ and don't know a single thing about engines, I've always had a fascination with cars that has only found its match on my dad. After all, my uncle Trey (who I've never met) got arrested for stealing one, so I guess that's another part of my dad that's inside my blood.

But seriously, when I was sixteen and Ethan would come to visit, every time we were going somewhere and I asked for the keys, I would always see a flick of fear pass through mom's eyes and right the same second, I would see Ethan smirk and/or snort.

I've never understood why since I've never had a speeding ticket or I've never even scratched the SUV or my dad's Jeep. I'm a perfect driver (or in dad's words, I drive like a guy, to which I always roll my eyes).

But that night, I _was_ driving like I maniac. I wasn't even thinking. I was just… feeling.

I don't think I've ever felt such radiating waves of… contempt. It's a strong and powerful thing you know? That Atwood rage… it makes you breathe fast and hard, and at the same time make you feel you have no lungs… You feel the primal urge to… destroy what's bothering you, to break it… but that's not the worse thing about it… the worst thing, is that you actually feel you _can_ and _are allowed to destroy things,_ whatever those things are.

I never thought Prague would upset me so damn much. I guess I always knew it would get under my skin but I'd believed I was a mature person who could handle the story as an adult… but I was acting like I child and even I know that now. I was just mad… ridiculously and dangerously so. I was blaming myself… because to me it was basic math: Taylor + Ryan love; Pregnant Taylor + Ryan love, yeah… but it also brought pissed off Veronica, insecure dad… and blah blah blah… The second you added me to that equation everything went out of balance, so in my mind… it was my fault.

And I'd be lying if I tell you the thought doesn't cross my mind every now and then. Insecurity never really goes away.

In my rage filled mind, I wanted to push the gas pedal as far as it would go because I wanted to believe that if I drove fast enough: a) my thoughts wouldn't catch up with me, b) I would vanish altogether and they would be able to make their lives again, c) I would teleport myself to the past a la "Back To The Future", or d) a combination of all three. Whatever the choice was, the only thing I knew was that I wasn't stopping; my boiling blood wouldn't let me.

Blurred shapes and lights ran past me as my heart kept growling inside my chest. Vaguely my senses begged for some sort of direction as my jaw clenched tighter, as if trying to block my thoughts, the attempt being in vain. I wondered where I was heading… I couldn't go back to that Christmukkah party, not after causing such a big scene to my dad and mom, and I couldn't go back home…

I. Couldn't. Go. Back. Home.

So I kept on driving, running red lights and switching gears furiously whenever the car begged me to, the muffled sounds of my cries mixing perfectly with the roar of the engine.

* * *

I'm convinced only sane people go through _all_ the five stages of grief and survive them unscathed. I mean, we're all different individuals, each one of us with our traits in character and personality, and yet, when things go wrong, we're forced to deal with it – if you wanna do it healthily – in the same way. That's not an easy or non-traumatic thing to do you know? Because those five stages aren't in every personality.

It's not in everyone to get angry over something, it's not in all people to accept things in the blink of an eye, just like there are people who can't be in denial because they face things without a second thought… and yet, most people survive each of those stages and live to tell it. For the most part, I wouldn't be able to do it. For me to face those stages maturely it would take a whole 360 on my personality and for me to embrace change… and that's something I don't do easily. Ergo, I'm not a sane individual…

You know who is? Ethan.

My brother.

* * *

It took me like six missed calls to finally notice 'Not Enough' by Our Lady Peace blaring from my cell phone. I wasn't thinking and I had no intention to do so but somehow I knew that the call I was getting was from someone who'd seen my little over joyous performance about an hour ago and by that point, the rage was starting to increase because of the underlying guilt. I knew I'd ruined my Grandma's party, I knew I'd hurt my mom and ultimately, I knew I'd broken up my dad's heart. I definitely didn't want to talk to someone who'd seen how horrible of a human being I could possibly be.

But the phone rang like three more times insistently… as if whoever was calling knew my process of "dealing" and knew my mind was too far gone and was in need to be brought back. I knew people would be worried about me and about where I was but just from listening the low sound of the song I'd chosen to be my ringtone, I knew this wasn't someone _worried_ about me per se. It was someone who knew that at some point I was gonna have to stop because "I'd figure it out", and it was someone who knew… that ultimately, making me listen nonstop to my ringtone… the lyrics of the song would begin to roll out of my tongue and I would end up… dealing.

"When they say 'you're not that strong',

You're not that weak

_It's not your fault__…"_

Damn it, Ethan for knowing me better than I know myself!

I didn't even feel when the car stopped, I didn't even noticed when my hands flew to either side of my chest and my forehead came to rest on the steering wheel, soundless cries and gasps of air trying to make their way into my chest where my lungs have been. Little by little the screen of rage began dissipating until all that was left was the depression that I'd known to be familiar at points in my life. I held myself together tightly as the breaking sobs of my shattered ideals… of my shattered family… became all I could hear and blackness and despair was all I could see from my closed lids. Ethan knew the things that made me tick and he knew I couldn't just be like this… so vulnerable for long if I was alone… so he called one last time…

And I finally picked it up.

"_Hey, its okay…"_ was the first thing he said when he heard me take some air, not a word coming from my mouth. _"It's okay Lill… just tell me where you are and I'll go pick you up"_

A painful sigh came out of my body as I tried to process what he'd just told me, it was okay? What was okay? Where was I? Nothing was okay… Where the hell was I?

"_I don't know where I am"_ I said in like twenty intakes of breath. I hate it when I'm that vulnerable.

"_Okay, I'll be there in ten"_ he said soothingly. Hadn't he heard me?

"_I said…"_ he cut me off at the fourth intake of breath.

"_Shhh… and I said I'll be there in ten"_ a small click ended the phone call. And I was alone again…

In depression mode, after having felt Anger… see what I mean when I say only sane people go through those stages unscathed? I can't even follow the order!

* * *

There comes a moment on the depression _I_ feel (have no idea if it happens to everyone) where there's just… nothing. There's not more pain, but it hasn't really gone away either. The tears stop falling even if the knot is still there, you breathe slower even if you feel you're suffocating. There's just nothing. It's a numbness where you replay what has happened that has you so sad, but instead of ripping you from the inside out like just seconds before, there's just… a void.

Voids are undeniable, they should irritate you but they don't, they're not something you can bargain about, but they're not something you can accept… they have no five stages… they're just a point where you get stuck and memories play over and over again.

Sixteen years of my life I'd witnessed my parents' lives, I'd seen their suffering… the kind of suffering that ironically only went away when they were nervously and awkwardly together… I'd seen them barely survive and pretend to be okay for my sake… because that was what all of it had been: pretending.

My whole life was a void… a void my dad had told me was a sacrifice. And I still kept thinking they'd sacrificed me.

It was in that state of mind in which Ethan found me… I saw the lights of his shiny pretentious Volvo behind the SUV and cleaned the residues of tears away the second he got in my car.

I thought he'd act like the understanding guy he'd been over the phone, but as soon as I felt him shut the passenger's door and sit next to me I knew he had a different attitude… and I hated it.

I'd had to seen it coming. He'd seen the whole ordeal at the party and he wasn't here to comfort me about my pain and my anger or guilt, he was here because he wanted to preach me and tell me I'd done everything wrong. And… the void I was feeling didn't felt like fighting. If he was gonna lecture me, then he was gonna have to make it fast.

"_Okay"_ he breathed out in a condescending manner I didn't like. At all.

"_What?"_ I sneered and he looked at me.

"_I understand you being upset…"_

A loud _"hmph"_ escaped me. Like a said, that was not one of my brightest nights.

"…_but I'm not here to applaud that little stunt you pulled on Grandma's"_

"_Yeah, I noticed you were wearing your self-righteous cologne the second you shut the door"_

"_Wanna play the defensive card? Two can play that game"_ It was in moments when he said stuff like those when I was always reminded about him being nine years older than me. He sounded so much like a parent.

"_Why don't you just tell me how self absorbed I was and how insensitive of me it was to scream like that and get it over with?"_ I rolled my eyes and raised my voice.

"_I see you already know you screwed up"_ Ugh that got to me sooo bad! I knew he meant I'd screwed up _that night_, but it was inevitable for me to relate my previous thoughts of how it was all my fault to my own brother saying that to me.

My eyes darted to his with a hurtful expression in less than a second, and I'm sure he saw my heart break before I blinked away.

"_Of course I know"_ I hadn't expected my voice to sound so minuscule.

"That'_s not your fault…"_ he whispered and reached out for my hand, and I pulled away.

"_It so is…"_ I yelled and my voice broke.

"_Oh please, just cut it out Lillian!"_ he matched my voice… and he was back to being my brother and not a parent. _"This is so completely beneath you!"_

"_Oh really?"_ I looked at him dead in the eyes and without hesitation he just screamed _"YES!"_

"_You're entitled to get upset… I'll give you that, but that little outrage was just so.not.who.you.are"_ he punctuated those last words as he grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look back at him. _"And you know what? I will NOT allow you to play the 'oh-pity-me-I-broke-my-parents-act on me! You know it was wrong to do what you did tonight so stop excusing your behavior behind something you KNOW is not your fault!"_

"_What the hell do you know about me Ethan!?"_ Again, not one of my brightest moments, but I guess I shouted that because I knew he was right, I knew it. But I just couldn't bring myself to accept it.

Denial.

"_Now I'm the one who doesn't know you…"_ his voice was composed even if it had a hint of irony in it.

"_You have no idea what it was like to hear that Ethan, you don't understand so don't you dare be so quick to judge me!"_ My words stumbled over my tongue and I saw the slightest hint of pain forming in his eyes…

Again, not my brightest moment.

"_Are you so… childish right now that you forgot those two are MY parents too?"_ he emphasized the word 'my' by being the only word he didn't scream… and by being the only word that I've ever seen him drive his hand up to his chest. _"Or is it that you think I'm not so much their son as you are their daughter?"_

Boy did that hurt! And it still does. I've always loved that there wasn't any difference between the treatment my parents gave to both Ethan and me, he'd always owned my heart when he'd call them 'mom' and 'dad' because I always knew biology was just a technicality, but the fact that I'd made him think, in between my stubbornness that I didn't think he was their son, just pained me…

That was exactly the thing that I needed to hear for my mind to be brought back.

I felt a knot in my stomach and it was so… hard to come up with an answer… it was all unsaid, unspoken…

"_I was just a year older than you when that happened… no one had to tell me, I lived it… so don't you be the one to tell me I don't know what __its like. I understand you being upset because I was… but not for once believe I'm gonna allow you to think this is your fault, just like I'm not gonna tell you, not in a million years, it was okay for you to hurt _mom and dad_ the way you did. You wanted to be treated as a grown up, Lillian Atwood, start acting like one."_

I'm not one for words… but I think that's the only time in my life where I hadn't said something, not because I was being silent, but just because that kind of authority left me with no words to say…

"_And__ if you're gonna use your rage… save it for someone who actually deserves it… Now move and give me the keys"_

"_What?"_ I mumbled.

He grabbed his cell phone and dialed mom, he quickly said something about knowing where I was, gave the address and asked mom to come pick up his car… and he closed the phone again.

"_I'm driving"_ he said as he shifted both himself and me and ended up on the driver's seat.

"_Where are we going?"_ I asked confused and still processing Ethan's words… curiosity winning over whatever stage my mind had been on.

"_I said you should leave your rage for someone who actually deserved it… so we're going to see that someone"_

I felt a shiver go down my spine and I think my eyes were gonna pop out of their sockets after I put two and two together… Ethan was right, it was childish of me to take it out on mom and dad the way I had, and to blame myself for everything that had happened… it wasn't anyone's fault, and he knew that… He knew I wasn't one for acceptance but he was doing his best to make me accept that _I_ wasn't to blame.

Without a word, he started the engine and I knew where we were going. So, as I'm convinced I don't go through the five stages of "grief", I'll just simply state the things I did go through that night two years ago. Inexplicably, I got into a rage attack, then I got sad and depressed and after that I got scared, ridiculously terrified.

We were gonna see her…

Grandma Rony

I would finally get a glimpse of the real thing.

* * *

The whole drive there was all kinds of silent. Usually that's not something that bugs me since I was born to appreciate the beauty of the lack of sound but on that particular moment I would've given anything for Ethan to just turn on the stereo and allow my head, either to explode because of the rage that was still consuming me, or explode because of the fear I might've been feeling. What've I gotten myself into?

What was I going to _do?_ What was I going to _ask? _I'd realized that night that something you want, something you think you're ready for turns out to just be too much. I'd already had my illusions broken with the story my dad had told me, and there wasn't much that my _grandmother_ of all people could tell me that would change the end of it. It would most likely give me more details of how it all went wrong, or how "weak" my parent's relationship was, and I couldn't just… let that happen.

I was in no condition to try and not deal, having already entered into a foreign anger and being at the verge of a depression.

What've I gotten myself into? What was I about to face? Did I want to go there after all?

None of that really mattered once we pulled over on Grandma Rony's and Ethan started unbuckling his seat belt.

* * *

Ever since I was little, my grandmother wasn't the most constant presence in my life. Even after she bought a house in Berkeley and moved there with the pretense of being "near her granddaughter", it wasn't like she was always visiting me or like I was spending time on that big house of hers. She was still someone I wasn't very accustomed to… and still, on the vague memories I had of her when I was less than five and whenever she was with me, she was nice to me, ridiculously nice.

But as I grew older and some of my innocence wore off, I started realizing that there was a _"Kaitlin"_ that whenever she could, she would take me out for ice cream even if 30 of the times when that occurred we would end up being three instead of two because she'd met a cute guy. There was a _"Summer"_ that would go up to my room to check on me and on the "princess sparkle" I inherited from her. There was a _"Kirsten"_ that would open her arms wide for me to run to her every time I saw her. There was even a _"Julie"_ that would bring me a new set of earrings and make up every time she came to visit, much to my dad's discomfort over his little girl wearing "Julie Cooper make-up", whatever that meant. I started noticing that there were people who were actually on my school plays, and who would actually take me to the park or the movies when I was older… people who was _there._

So as the over analytical person I would always be… I started to wonder why on Earth my middle name was _"Veronica"_ when the one person I knew with that name didn't feature in my life much. Her house that night looked so strange for me when I got out of the car and walked to the doorstep with Ethan that I wondered why, if I didn't even recognize the house until we pulled over, and considering everything I'd just learned about her involvement in my parent's lives, why had they named me after her? What was the common ground this woman and I had in common that would help me with whatever was going to happen when she opened up that door?

My thoughts stopped when Ethan took a big breath and, giving me a crooked smile knocked on the door for Veronica to open it up.

And when she opened it up and I caught a glimpse of her features before the door blocked me completely from her, for a second my fear just slipped away. Her eyes were hazel, just like my mother's. Her face wasn't as beautiful as that of the woman who brought me to life but they still had some sort of… warmness? That reminded me of safeness… of the niceness I'd felt on the scarce moments I've been with her on my childhood. For a second I thought that was why I had her name. For a second I thought my fear of coming here had been all for nothing because I would go in there, talk to her, and instead of yelling or letting her feel my anger, I would end up being consoled by someone and the vague hopes of everything being okay would be reignited in me…

"_Oh… if it isn't my daughter's charity case from Chino…"_

… But then, the second ended.

I think I nearly gasped at what she said when she saw Ethan on the other side of the door, and I felt my stomach drop to my feet at how… horrendous her tone of voice sounded. I guess it was kind of a blessing that I was angled next to Ethan in a way that the door was blocking me because if I would've seen her face, I would've sucker punched the woman.

"_It's good to see you too, Veronica"_

Two things I noticed when my brother spoke. First, that his tone was polite and forced, not gritted behind teeth, but still it felt like it wasn't natural. I'd only heard him talk like that to the jocks in the neighborhood, exactly when he was suppressing a punch and his fists were clenched. I looked down at his left hand, and there it was… his hand all balled up tightly. And the second thing was that he didn't say "grandma" like he would've if it would've been Kirsten. During all his life, he'd called everyone around me as _I _would call them, but for her, he just didn't do it. And that just rose my pissed off mood just a _liiiittle _higher.

"_Oh sweetheart, you don't have to pretend here. We both know this is not so pleasant is it?"_ and there was that condescending tone that made my blood boil. My previous thoughts invaded my head again, and I remember I'd never seen this… side of her. To me, she'd been all niceness. Was it that she hadn't seen me? _"So tell me, what brings you from the doomed parts of Earth to see me?"_

Oh yeah, a bunch of question marks rose high up on my head. Why was I named "Veronica"?

I noticed how Ethan's breathing kept steady and I did my best to match my breathing with his. He was being so polite, and so nice… that just showed a lot of what being with my parents, or around me ('cause I like to take the credit for that even if he's the one always saving me) had done to his character. _I_ on the other hand, wasn't going to be able to hold my temper if I kept hearing her bitchiness.

And Ethan seemed to notice that.

"_Actually, I'm not the one who wants to see you__. She is."_ he grabbed my shoulders and moved me, and my previous theory was confirmed by the string of colors that flushed my grandmother's face (from green to purple) once her eyes landed on mine. It was obvious that she never intended for me to see that side of her, and it dawned on me that she'd restricted her venomous comments to herself whenever I was around. That made me even madder, because I felt like my image of her had been a lie all along, had been just a way to pretend like my entire life had.

"_Oh Lillian"_ her voice switched pitches and tempos as she extended her arms to hug me, her tone sounding nothing but hypocritical to me. _"What are you doing here?"_

Once she released me, I thought of a hundred kitty cat remarks I could make to answer that question, none of those being at all civil; intention I made very clear with my glare. Ethan noticed and he once saved the day. _"Well, we just came from Kirsten's Christmukkah party and she wanted to talk to you."_

All my anger because of how she'd treated Ethan was a little side tracked while I remembered the whole purpose of this… I was supposed to talk to her about my parent's relationship… huh… I probably gained an ulcer that night from the rage. It was unnerving how much I think I hated her that night, and we hadn't even talked properly. It's funny that now, in reality, she and I have finally found some common ground.

"_You're seriously going to leave me here?"_ I asked Ethan through my teeth as my eyes locked with his.

"_I'll just wait in the car"_ he smiled a reassuring smile and nodded only towards Veronica before turning away and heading to the car.

"_Come on in"_ the contrast in her previous voice and this one was just… too much. The first one was sour and this one was too sweet, it sickened me.

And still, I followed like a sheep about to be sacrificed, but strangely enough I wasn't scared anymore. I don't get scared of people easily and if I'm having a semblance of a rage black out, I tend to get desensitized. I just didn't care anymore. And if she ever wanted to treat me with snaky comments… I was sure I could match her. I _was_ her granddaughter after all.

"_Oh, honey I'm sorry about that…"_ she motioned towards the door once she shut it, referring to what she'd said to _my_ brother, her tone still too bimbo-ish for me.

"_Please, grandmother"_ I smiled the most fake smile in the world and tried to copy her tone. _"What were the words you just said to Ethan? 'You don't have to pretend here. We both know you aren't sorry, are you?'"_

She wasn't expecting that. That, I could notice.

"_Ok, let's not pretend"_ her tone was blank _"I see your mother has taught you well"_ and the fire in my stomach picked up a notch.

"_Actually that wasn't my mother"_ I said as simply as I could trying to manage my anger_ "Apparently being a bitch comes with your DNA"_

It took her a moment to digest what I'd just said, a moment that if I wasn't the queen of details, I wouldn't have noticed. But then, she dressed her face with a mask and turned her back to me while she proceeded to seat on the couch.

"_Oh yeah, you're right. That's definitely me."_ She sat down and motioned me to take the chair in front of her. _"Your mom can't even call me that"_

Okay, when people mess with me, I can take care of myself. I need no one to defend me because I might be breaking inside and the words may be hurting, but I can handle stuff with a very tough bravado and with cutting words coming out of my mouth just like the one who's insulting me. But to hear someone mess with _my_ family, with the people _I_ care about? Veronica Townsend (because that wasn't my Grandma Rony, not the one I know she is now), crossed the line that night, not once, not twice, but three times up until that point and I just wanted to show her what Kid Chino's offspring was made of. But instead I swallowed hard and I swear I could even hear my mom's voice inside my head saying "Easy Girl…" and made me regain my composure.

"_My mom's just classier than you"_ and I sat down in front of her.

She smiled. I assumed it was because she hadn't found someone to banter with in a really long time. The house seemed one of those places that are _too_ clean for people to live in… like no one other than her had been there in a while. _"What are you doing here sweetie?"_ her tone came polite, but not defensive. It was the first thing that came out of her that actually sounded sincere.

That, made me bow my head and try to play with my nails. But then I remembered that's a habit my mother has and I didn't want my grandmother to notice I was nervous or thinking, so instead I started looking all around while breathing softly. What was I doing there? What had Ethan brought me here in the first place? Something about… rage…

But did I really want to just scream and be a bitch to this woman who obviously didn't care what the consequences of her actions were? She didn't care about the infinitesimally things like Christmas decorations for the house with the holiday just five days away; She hadn't cared about her daughter's happiness, why should she be bothered by something _a stranger_ like me could tell her?

"_You know,__ Christmu… Christmas is five days away."_ I corrected myself. _"You don't have any decorations on"_

She seemed to be confused. And Actually, I was confused. I felt myself at the edge of a ramble.

"_You came all the way here, just to criticize my decoration?"_ her tone of voice resembled my mom's whenever she asked you a rhetorical question. ("You don't think I'm… strange?"; "No mom, you're just… eccentric")

Still, I neglected that resemblance and kept on going.

"_You know why? Because you don't care about Christmas"_ I swear she had a WTF? Face. But it all seemed to dawn on her when I continued. _"You don't care about being happy… You think 'happy' is never enough and I wanna know why"_

I could see in her eyes that she knew where I was going and right that second I knew she was going to find a way of not answering me. I'm just that good at reading people courtesy of my mother. But still, I knew I'd hit a button and I was going to try my best to find the reason as to why she'd seen my parents, knew they were expecting a baby, and still thought them being happy was holding my mom back. I knew that technically what she'd said or had stopped saying shouldn't have affected my parents the way it had, and it shouldn't have triggered an insecurity in my dad's brain, I knew that. But still I needed to know why she'd put the seed of doubt just because she'd thought being happy wasn't good enough.

And she started again with the evasion tactics.

"_Wow, you really are your mother's daughter… trying all the psycho-babble__ as if it makes a difference to me"_

"_You know what Veronica? I've had it"_ my tone was easy and soft and I had a smile on my face. The kind of tone and smile that belonged in a bleach-blonde tramp dressed as a school girl chewing pink bubble gum. (And yes, I am blonde. But I'm dark blonde at that thank you very much) _"Being a bitch does come with your DNA, my mom can be a bitch when she wants to"_ I shrugged _"but there's this tiny detail you're not taking into consideration"_ I made the space between my thumb and foreigner less than an inch _"I _am_ an Atwood. Don't let this petite figure fool you; throwing punches is also in my bloodstream. So if you make one more snaky comment towards my brother, my dad… or my mom… you're gonna have a black eye to match that black soul of yours."_

I sure as hell enjoyed the way her mouth gaped open for one split second before she realized it and closed it back again. It tasted like victory.

I clapped my hands together slowly and decided to turn full Townsend mode and get all perky. _"Oh, and that's not a threat… that's a promise…Do we understand each other? Good! It's nice to talk to you Granny!"_ I saw the way the vein in her forehead increased in size and I only stopped because it started freaking me out. Seriously.

"_Lillian Veronica Atwood"_ she said my middle name slowly and I started seeing what was it that we had in common. We were both bitches, only in me it was a hidden talent and in her it was her way of living. _"I know what you want. And I just won't talk to you about that"_

And I didn't see that one coming. It was a night of surprises what can I say?

"_What do you mean you're not talking to me about that? About what?"_

"_About why I didn't care about your mom's 'happiness' before she married… your dad, I assumed that was your question?"_ I was glad that she restricted whatever comment she was about to say about my dad and just used the right term. I'd gotten through to her or at least she thought I was capable of punching her.

"_It was, but I just don't understand why you would ban that subject"_

"_Simple."_ Second word during all that we'd talked so far that sounded honest. _"Because in spite of what you may think honey, there are some ethics on that 'black soul of mine'. And I'm just not talking to my granddaughter about something that's just between her parents and me. Not a chance."_

"_Why are you holding yourself back with me? You have no respect for ethics in general or for anyone in my family and you still think its 'ethical' to not give me an explanation? Why do you think happiness, or the kind of happiness that involves a baby, alas, me, is not good enough?" _I was starting to blurt out words just without thinking. My mom and my dad denying me an explanation I could understand. But my grandmother, the one that had been so opinionated about a lot of things including my existence and who hadn't been there in my life was _denying_ me an explanation when that was all I'd asked for her in my life?

"_It wasn't you…"_ Oh yeah, just what I needed… the one who'd destroyed my family saying it wasn't me why she'd destroyed it.

"_Oh great"_ I just answered. I wasn't interested in her version of why it wasn't me. _"What was it then? Just answer the question"_

She sighed, and it seemed burdened, like she'd rather me talking to her about something else other than this. As if she'd wanted to talk to me under other circumstances. I guess that was the first time I realized she was actually… human… Someone I might've given a chance if she hadn't screwed up so bad with me. And the funny thing is, that even though two years have passed since that day… I still gave her that second chance there… when she sighed. Not after as everyone else seems to think… but then… right in between the bitchiness and the confrontation… right in the semblance of "bargaining" that my process had gone through.

"_Everything I did, good or bad… more bad than good, I did it because of your mom. Because I… loved her"_ it was inevitable to snort… really. _"You may not believe it, but I did. And I wanted the best for her. I wanted her to live up to her potential and to raise the bar higher. And instead she comes and says: "I'm done with school because I'm happy" bringing a boy on the arm, a baby on her womb and a drop-out-of-college sentence with her. Just because she was happy? That version of 'love' and 'happiness' that your mom had back then? That was settling, settling for a mediocre life when she could've had the best of the best. She could've studied as a single mom just like I did the first two years of her life and she could've had a better career… so it wasn't you…"_

I did my best to not let her see that I was trying to swallow the lump on my throat as I digested her words. She hadn't screamed and she hadn't talked hypocritically to me. She'd just stated something that to her was the absolute truth. In her mind she loved her daughter and spoke her mind, said the hurtful stuff she did because she cared. I didn't agree with that at all and I'll never will, but that was _her _truth. To her, love was just mediocre… the idea of family was mediocre by proxy, and as much as she said _"it wasn't me"_, the idea of me when my mom was 23 was mediocre as well.

But then again, who was Veronica to know what potential my mom had to exploit? Veronica had never been in my mom's life at all, so what could she know about my mom's true happiness? Who was her to say that it was just settling? Who was her to say that I hadn't happened in the right time? Her granddaughter had come to her house, five days before Christmas, not to congratulate her, but to interrogate her… she obviously wasn't the best judge of happiness, love and family, was her? And even when I knew all of that… it still hurt. It still hurt that right after she said mediocre, I'd heard nothing else. And it still hurt, that I wanted to get out of there…

So, trying for the knot to let me talk, I said as softly and autocratically as I could:

"_You know? I came here knowing that you didn't care, and what you said didn't change my mind. You only cared about what _you_ thought was settling, or being happy, but you completely forgot that you'd been a ghost in your daughter's life. You didn't know her, and as much as you wanted to correct the same mistake with me, you don't know me either. You don't get to say that I'm a mediocre lifestyle for my mom. You don't know my dad… you don't know what a great man he grew up to be, and what a great parent he is while also being successful at what he does. And if you say love and happiness are just settling with living below your potential…then I want nothing to do with the kind of love you have to offer…"_ I swallowed, knowing that the sentence I was about to say would have more meaning to me than it would ever have to her, especially because I didn't _like_ at all what was surely coming out of my mouth:

"_I prefer love _being a sacrifice_ than a mediocrity"_

I had no idea if she had something else she wanted to tell me… but I just turned on my heels and left, and exactly the second I slammed the door shut, the one in my heart flew open, and tears… real ones, started coming out like waterfalls from my eyes… even if I was denying myself the reason why.

* * *

"_Hey Lill…"_ I feel a nudge on my elbow as someone else sits with me and Aunt Summer at the table. _"Still getting the hee bee gee bees?"_

Even before I turn around I know who she is. That voice is unmistakable, and given my Aunt Summer's snort and half smile, there is no doubt in my mind that she is Grandpa Sandy's daughter.

"_Come on Soph, just leave the kid alone"_ Aunt Summer tells Sophie and I look at her raising an eyebrow.

"_Kid…?"_ I ask appalled.

"_And why would I leave her alone?"_ said the one Aunt I just don't see as aunt because she's a child. She's… sort of a Seth with the Kirsten's looks. Yeah.

My Aunt Summer just shrugs and before she starts sipping her drink says: _"Had to give it a try… but if you're going to start bickering, please keep it low and don't ruin your hair. I'm finally resting from how annoying your mom can get Lillian, and I don't want to hear her freak out if you and Sophie start pulling each other's hair out just before your speech"_

I simply roll my eyes. I grew up with Sophie. Even if she's five years older than me, we've always been at the same level, and we always end up fighting playfully with each other. But I do get her point… my mom can start freaking out, and I don't need her doing that when I might bolt out of here.

"_Actually blondie…"_ Sophie says.

"_You're blonder than me…"_ I say back before she ends her sentence.

"_Your mom sent me to find ya"_ and that sentence just made my lips round up in a soundless 'oh' _"she says you've danced with your dad, you've talked to Ethan, to Summer and to me and you've neglected her all night. I think she's starting to get jealous"_ she whispered that last sentence with a hand on one corner of her mouth as if it was a faked secret, and again I roll my eyes and smile.

I sigh and my burdened worried soul takes a rest as I rise from the chair and began walking to my mother's direction as she flashes me a smile… her hair all pulled up, looking as beautiful as I've only seen her once. If there's someone who can give me a little peace, is her… my mom… my heroine.

* * *

As silent as the whole drive to Grandma's had been, the drive home was even more silent. Ethan didn't speak, neither did I. What could I tell him? Could I let him know I was sad that my whole life was sort of broken when everyone else's seemed to be pieced together? Every other family I knew was rock stable except mine… And it was near Christmas and I was sad… what was there to say?

My body and my mind began entering to the other stage of "grieve" I'd forced for myself…

Resignation.

* * *

"_Oh my God you're here!"_ I hadn't even walked inside the door of the house properly when I felt one arm hugging my neck as my mother's other limb was hugging Ethan's neck beside me. I could feel in her embrace that she'd been scared… and I felt another pang of guilt wash over me. That night was just so sad and horrible… but now that I see things, and now how it all turned out _because_ of that night, I guess I can deal with it. Right then, I was just broken… I'd just given up and had stopped struggling with my own feelings… I'd stopped trying to save my parents relationship and my mother's languid and warm embrace just made me feel even worst.

"_Where were you?"_ her voice was full of concern and her brow was furrowed. It looked like she'd been crying and it was then when I realized it was 3:00 in the morning.

"_Shh… easy mom"_ Ethan did his best to sound nonchalant _"I was with her, you shouldn't have been so worked up"_

"_Oh, no, I shouldn't have been so worked up __that my daughter and my son were probably killing each other due to my daughter's temper, not giving me a clue of where they were since ten thirty when I went to pick up my son's car in the middle of nowhere! Not to mention that my son's girlfriend hasn't heard from him in said time, and none of my kids are picking up their cell phones! I was about to call Ryan for a search mission!"_

Never in my life I'd seen my mom so worried, her hands flying up nervously with every word and her tone getting more and more restricted because of the obvious knot she had in her throat. It made me feel… horrible. But maybe it was the mention of my dad, and the fact that she was only going to call him in a desperate measure what made my heart ache even more…

Resignation.

"_I'm sorry mom…"_ I mumbled.

"_Yeah I am too…"_ Ethan replied as he took a step closer to her and kissed the top of mom's head. _"I promise I'll call Hannah to tell her of my whereabouts so she can inform you"_

My mom gave him a crooked smile before she rolled her eyes.

"_Now…"_ Ethan continued as I kept frozen in place… still thinking, still broken. He was taking it so… lightly… _"Can I crash here? I was staying at Hannah's but… it's late"_

"_Oh really?"_ my mom's face was still serious. It was too early for jokes about both of us going missing for so the night.

"_Mom…"_ he said softly. It still managed to make my heart melt even destroyed as it was.

"_I already set up the guest room honey. But I can still send my 25 year old son to his room for nearly making me go crazy"_ She was still serious, but I knew that was sort of a joke… they were talking just like they would, and for the first time, I felt like the adopted kid. Didn't anyone notice that I was just… torn?

"_You're kind of already crazy, but you can yell at me and ground me if it makes you happy"_

"_Night Ethan…"_ my mom said, and Ethan headed upstairs. It took me a while to notice that she was staring at me.

As I'd experienced earlier that night, my mom is the one person with whom I have no walls. I can't have walls with her because she was the best friend I'd ever have and she just reads my mind better than I can read actions. So I knew that if I kept standing there, I would break… and I didn't want to keep hurting her.

"_Goodnight mom, I'll see you in the morning."_ My voice was crumbled and… small.

"_You, hold on a minute there__…"_ my mom stood in front of me, blocking my path.

"_Can we please have this talk in the morning?"_ I pleaded even when I knew that wasn't going to happen.

"_Um.. I'm afraid I'll go with 'no' sweetie.__"_ Her voice was sweet… not _too sweet_ as Veronica's… but the kind of sweet that my insides roll inside me.

She just took my hand and made me sit next to her on the couch and the second she put her arm on my shoulder, my whole system gave in. I didn't want to fight it; I didn't have the strength anymore.

Resignation.

Tears started rolling down my cheeks, but I didn't break into sobs as my mom pulled me to her chest and started running her hands on my back. I just cried softly, and I guess that's the kind of crying and pain that's… more unbearable. The kind of pain where you can control yourself, where the pain's a pain that you _can_ understand… and even then, you can't find a way to grieve.

I understood the _sacrifice_ bit now. It had been such a hard pill to swallow but I understood it. And I understood that for them to be together again it would require for them to just drop the sacrifice crap and start being selfish… start realizing that it was okay to be happy without letting the best thing that happened to you slip through your hands. But at the same time, I knew my dad… and I knew my mom… and hell, I knew me. That would need for hell to freeze over for my dad and mom to be back together just on their own.

Resignation.

I wiped away my tears and sat beside my mom and she started running her hand through my hair, pulling back the strands that were lose and tucking them behind my ear.

It was so freaky that she wasn't rambling. Silence drowned the house.

"_You can ask me anything you know?"_ her voice was a whisper. _"And I'm not mad at you… about before. But you should've just told me that you found the letter cleaning earlier today. You shouldn't have been holding that inside you that long sweetie… You know you can talk to me, right?"_

My mom's a tough person, she is… but there are parts of her that are just as insecure as I am, and I could see in her eyes that she didn't hold against me that I'd freaked out on my Grandma's party… however she was worried that I'd hold something against her for keeping that letter… for keeping that box of memories.

"_Yeah I know mom, it's just…"_ I struggled to find words and she kept looking at me. _"… it's just hard, I guess."_

"_What is?"_ she knew what it was… she was just using the same tactic she used with dad. Making the words come out of my mouth.

"_You and dad not being together because of… that letter… because of me"_

"_Hey Lillian…"_ I cut her off…

"_I know it wasn't me… per se."_ I wasn't lying… at least the majority of my body wasn't. _"But I guess… I guess it's hard that my parents split because of something so… small"_

She saw my point, and I knew that deep inside her she was aware that it _was_ a small thing… compared to how much she loved him. And she showed me why it was even harder to talk to her about this: because it hurt for her worst than it hurt for me… and it was hard to watch it in that immense pool of hazel.

"_I know what you mean. And… you know what? It is small…"_ she stared at her nails and once more, I blamed Veronica for all of it… it was hard not to. _"But just because it's small doesn't mean it's not complicated"_

"_Why does everyone keep saying it's… complicated? For me it's not.__"_

"_And God bless your soul for that baby, really"_ My mom said as she squeezed my hand. _"But it is complicated. Not all of us have the strength to fight against ourselves and our demons and fears. And sometimes… it gets so big… you can't see the rest of it. And it's hard to focus after that. And that's completely understandable. It just gets… complicated."_

"_Will you… dumb it out for me?"_ I said with a smile on my face. I guess I was reduced to a six year old on that moment and I just wanted an example I could understand.

"_Okay"_ my mom settled her shoulders and thought for a second before she kept on going _"Remember when you were little, and the first time you read Pride and Prejudice and you told me that it was hard to love Mr. Darcy because he seemed so stuck up… but then when you realized you were watching him from Elizabeth's perspective you noticed they were meant for each other?"_

How could I forget that?

"_Yeah…"_ I answered.

"_Well, sometimes we still watch from Elizabeth's perspective. We see ourselves through someone else's prejudices and we give up"_

I understood her point I guess. My dad hadn't seen himself through my mom's eyes, she'd seen herself through Veronica's prejudices and he'd told himself that if he accepted his flaws, my life and my mom's would be better… only in his case it wasn't really acceptance… it was the same resignation I was feeling. The same feeling of just giving up.

My mom just hugged me, and I started thinking about her words… about how she painted the picture quite nicely in spite of how much it still ached that my parents wouldn't actually be together…

But then she just removed the one cloud in the sky that stopped me from seeing the sun…

"_But__… Just because it's complicated, doesn't mean it's not love. And one thing I can assure you is that that love, is everything but small."_

* * *

"_Look at you all shiny"_ I say as I approach my mom… her mega watt smile flashing, matching mine.

"_And look at you all in red, you know, Kirsten told me you look just like me when I was your age"_ I smile at that… I know all about the red dress and the ass swaying... please… I _am_ her daughter after all.

"_You're… gorgeous. I'm just an awkward 18 year old"_ I smile and she hugs me… and it feels like kindness.

"_So… ready to talk to the masses?"_ She puts her hands in front of her and she smiles, as if suppressing a squeal.

"_See? This is why I didn't want to talk to you"_ she fakes indignation _"You're a liiittle over excited with me going up there and embarrassing myself"_

"_You're not going to embarrass yourself…__ You're my kid!"_

"_Exactly!"_ I joke and she playfully slaps me.

She looks at me after we start laughing and I feel that sort of bond that only exists in mothers and daughters. She's my mom… she's my life… I'm her kid… I'm her reason… and _I'm_ her maid of honor.

"_So... Do you know what you're going to say?"_ she asks…

"_I do have a few ideas in mind so far…"_ I say nodding. _"But nothing… steady."_

"_Just… remember I love __you and that I'm so proud and thankful for you doing this"_ My mom said and she grabbed my hands.

"_I love you too mom…"_ I say, and I smile.

I know what she means now by the fact that love's not small… the kind of love I feel for her can go beyond barriers, and I know that the kind of love that she has for my dad, as her eyes search the crowd where he's talking to uncle Seth with his black tux and tie, looking simple but handsome… I can feel in her stare and _know_ what love is already…

And as I'm dazed looking at what my parent's lives and journey might be evoking inside me, I turn my face to the side a little and I see… just behind one of the glass doors of the salon, the glimpse of that face, those other pair of hazel eyes that once made me doubt and hate what love could be…

And even when I should hate her, even when everyone should… I smile.

* * *

_review me!_


End file.
